The Gathering
by WriterKos
Summary: Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. Some wounds must be healed. Team fic and family fic. The aftermath of Connecting the Dots. Part of my Joy Buchanan series. LAST CHAPTERS UP!
1. Gift sorting

**Brand new fic in the Joy Buchanan series.**

**The Gathering** – Some wounds must be healed. Team fic and family fic. The aftermath of my story _**Connecting the dots (crossover with Criminal Minds)**_. Part of my Joy Buchanan series, so it probably won't make much sense if you haven't read the previous ones. Rated T, but rating will go up later. Normal disclaimers apply: No money is being made by this poor girl doing this, etc, etc, etc.

_**Washington DC  
**_**_NCIS squad room  
_****_Present day_**

_**Gift sorting**_

_"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." **Stephen King.**_

The agents were silently typing in their reports, after a successful arrest. Tony, just to spite Ziva, made a paper ball and threw it at her. Ziva caught it mid flight.

"Wow, you have to teach me how you do that."

"Just my ninja reflexes, Tony," she said, smiling smartly.

Tony smiles, and looks at McGee, who is checking his watch for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

"Do you have somewhere to go, McGoo?"

"Yes, I do," he answers, "Joy came back from Glasgow this afternoon, and I'm going to meet her in her place," and he fidgets nervously on his seat. After being kidnapped and shot by a psychopath, Special Agent Joy Buchanan was ordered to stay on medical leave for several weeks, and her family insisted that she recuperate in the family home, back in Montana.

If she stayed in DC, she didn't want to be a burden on either her NCIS teammates or her family, who all had other commitments. Her father promptly accepted to nurse her back to health, as he had done the last time, and even contacted the same nurse that helped her while she recuperated from her first kidnapping almost two years before.

So, she stayed back in Glasgow for the last five weeks, with only the occasional phone call to her teammates and video call to McGee late at night. Her doctor in Glasgow cleared her for travelling, so she was coming back to DC to be checked out by Ducky, before being reinstated on desk duty.

"Are her parents coming over as well?" asks Gibbs, curious about the patriarch and matriarch of the clan. After their forced interaction during the kidnapping, he couldn't help but feel connected to the gentle reverend and his fierce fire breathing wife.

McGee smiles, "I think only her father is coming with her, as her mother has been called to solve some type of emergency on the base in Nevada," he shakes his head, "the last time I spoke to Joy, she was shouting in the background about incompetent young bucks, fresh out of university engineers who can not figure out a proton from a neutron," he smiles, "she flew in two days ago and until she solves whatever happened she's not coming over."

Gibbs smiles, imagining her breathing down the neck of some young engineer. _Poor bastard_, he thinks.

Tony is curious, "what exactly does Joy's mother do in Nevada?"

McGee smirks, "according to her job description, she is a senior consultant in new weapons R&D," he looks at Tony, "but according to Joy, her mother creates different delivery methods for WMD," Ziva is confused, "her husband is a reverend, and she creates weapons of mass destruction, how does that work?"

McGee shakes his head, "I have no idea."

At that they hear the ding of the elevator and the doors open, and a stranger with a cowboy hat covering her face, hiding her identity, entered the bullpen, dragging a suitcase and a huge thermal bag on top of it behind her. Her winter coat was opened, her scarf hanging from her neck. She had faded jeans on, and her cowboy boots were evidently very old. Underneath the winter coat, her big flannel shirt hung low over her body, covering her toned hips, and there was a knot on the front, where one could see that she was also wearing a thick leather belt.

She smiles and lifts her hat as she gets close to the agents, and they can barely recognize Joy, "greetings from the countryside," and they stare at her, flabbergasted. She shrugs, "what, don't you like my outfit?" she does a short spin, and her flannel shirt flies around her petite body, but it does not hide the fact that her right hand is still in a small pink cast.

"What are you doing here? I thought you would come to the office only next week," says Tony, and he stands up and hugs the agent, her hat getting in the way. She smiles, "I had too many gifts to bring, so I left dad in the townhouse and came bearing gifts," she moves out of Tony's arms, and moves to give a hug to Ziva.

Ziva is shocked to notice how much weight her teammate lost, feeling the bones protruding under the skin as she hugs her, the thick big flannel shirt just hiding the fact from view. She looks up and her eyes cross with Tony, and she sees the same concern in his eyes as well.

She moves to stand before Gibbs, and gives him a mock salute, that she messes up because her right hand is still in a cast. They smile at each other and she moves to hug him, "How are you doing, Joy?" he mutters against her hair, as she hugs his middle, she takes a step back, "Not bad, dad said that you ought to visit him, you owe him a poker and a chess game."

Gibbs smirks, "I don't owe him anything, he just doesn't know how to lose," she laughs, "not many people beat dad in chess, he just wants a rematch," they smile at each other, and she looks to the right, where McGee is standing with his hands in his pockets, she steps out of Gibbs' arms and stands before him.

Both are very self-conscious, as they want to properly greet each other but they know they shouldn't, as they are in their work environment. McGee studies her for a while, and he can't deny that she looks hot in the attire, but it just barely hides the fact that she lost a lot of weight during her recovery. Her eyes are sunk in her face, and there is still some yellow pallor on her skin.

"Hey."

"Hey," McGee takes the initiative and just drags her into his arms, and holds her, and she folds her arms around his middle and buries her face in his chest, "I missed you," he mutters against her neck.

She smiles, certain that he can't see it, and mutters, "I missed you too," they take a step apart, and each studies the face of the other. McGee notices the pain lines and how thin she looks, he felt her fragility under his fingers. She studies his face and sees the worry lines around his eyes and mouth, and she's sad that she added those to him.

"Mom said that she hopes you like her gifts," she puts her cowboy hat on his head, "as she went to great lengths to ensure all were perfect for each of you," she looks at the other agents and tries to move the thermal bag from the top of her suitcase. It looks heavy, and Gibbs and Tony move to help her to get it on the floor.

"Thanks guys," she opens, and delicious smell of pie comes drifting from it, and all agents stand around it, "what do you have in there?" Tony asks, salivating already.

"This is for you," she carefully gets a Tupperware from the thermal bag and gives it to Tony, "it is homemade chicken pie with baby peas, a family recipe, mom said that there is enough of it to last maybe two or three days," she smiles, "depending on how much you like it," she shakes her head, "my brothers would always get some before they left on a marine deployment, and they said that it never lasted a day, as they would start eating and their buddies would attack it like a pack of hungry wolves."

Then she turns to Ziva, and gives her another container, this one made of glass, with a plastic lid. "This is for you," Ziva looks at the contents through the glass, but she can't identify it, but there is a white and a dark brown line on top of each other. It seems to be a wet cake, "what is it?"

Joy smiles, "Mom's version of tiramisu, however she uses real Italian espresso and Belgian dark chocolate, it is to die for, may I have some?" Joy asks with a smile, but Ziva's mouth is watering at the description and she moves the sweet out of Joy's range, "your mom made it for me, get your paws away from it."

"Ahhh Ziva," moans Joy, and Ziva smiles, "later, maybe a little bit later," Joy smiles, "ok, then I will also give you this," and she grabs an opened box of chocolates, "mom gave it to me for safekeeping, but I couldn't resist," Ziva looks at the box, "you opened my Godiva chocolate! How dare you…" Joy laughs out loud, "I couldn't resist, they were just there, in my hand luggage calling my name, whispering," she lowers her voice, as a whisper, "eat me, eat me, I'm so delicious, eat me," both women laugh out loud.

Gibbs shakes his head at his two agents, and Joy turns to him, and smiles, "to you, mister Gibbs," she rummages a little further and grabs another Tupperware, an opaque white one that he can't exactly see what is inside. He shakes it a little, and looks at Joy, "what is it?" she smiles at him, "open it," she is fidgeting like a small child, he shakes it again, and opens the lid, and smiles when he sees the contents, "pumpkin pie."

"Mom said that you looked to be the traditional type of guy, so she chose the traditional type of pie," she smiles.

"Say thanks to your mom for me."

Joy frowns at that, "uhm… mom didn't make that pie."

"She didn't."

"Nope," she smirks, goes to her suitcase and opens it one handed, and gets a pile of written cards from it. She struggles one handed to find the right one, once she finds it she starts reciting, "her name is Dana Stratton, she's forty three, she's a widow, two adult children, she likes going to the park and watching the birds sing, she likes action movies and she's also a senior aide in the Secret Service at the White House," she selects another card and gives it to Gibbs, "here are her telephone and mobile numbers, emails, house address."

Gibbs is looking at her, seriously questioning her mental health, "why would I need that?" she takes a step back and grimaces, "because you have a blind date with her Saturday night at the Tabard Inn, at eight p.m sharp." She theatrically covers her head with her arms, just waiting for his explosion.

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Reviews are food for my soul.

a/n: The Buchanan matchmakers are on the roll. Gibbs has no chance.


	2. Blind dates and baby demons

_**Blind dates and baby demons**_

He keeps looking at the papers in his left hand, the pie in the right, "a blind date," she moves her arms a little away, and keeps on talking, "I know, I know, I told mom that it was a stupid idea, but she insisted, she said you were a fine specimen of the male species, what a waste of good genetic material, then I might have mentioned that you like redheads."

He takes a step towards her predatorily, and she speeds up, "then she spoke to her friend in Pentagon, who spoke to another friend in the White House, and they might have talked to Dana, but she is also not very enthusiastic about the idea, but she ran a background check on you and she is curious, and she is a redhead, and…" she stops before she opens a bigger hole for herself, and Gibbs is just staring at her.

"A blind date?" he repeats, and Tony and Ziva are barely hiding their mirth, McGee has his head lowered trying to hide his laughter, Tony can not hold himself anymore and folds down and lets the laughter come, "the dragon lady set you up boss," and keeps on laughing until tears come out of his eyes.

Joy lowers her arms, and lowers her head to her chest, chagrined, "you don't have to go, but Dana is a nice person, and dinner is paid for, you could just go, enjoy an extremely expensive nice meal, talk to someone intelligent for an hour and go your separate ways, no big deal."

Gibbs shakes his head, "I haven't been in a blind date since…" he can't remember when, and Joy smiles, "well, maybe it is time to start again?"

"Your mother is a cunning lady," he says.

"Well, she does make weapons of mass destruction, sometimes it is just easier to go with the flow and just accept whatever she throws in your way than trying to go against and paying for it," she rubs her bottom with her good hand, as if remembering past spankings.

"Dana, uhm?" he says, looking at the card.

"Yep," she agrees.

"And she's a redhead?" Joy grins and nods again, and Gibbs puts Dana's card in his jacket pocket and carries the pie to his desk, "we'll see."

"Oh my God, JOY!" shouts Abby, and attacks the agents in one of her big hugs, and Joy grimaces as she hits her broken wrist.

"Careful there," says McGee, separating the women. "Oh, I'm sorry," says Abby, "I didn't mean to hurt you," Joy smiles, "it is ok, it is just that I still have a broken paw," and shows her arm in a cast.

"Does it hurt a lot?" Joy shakes her head, "no, just itches, they said that I still have to keep it on for one or two weeks, then I'm free for physical therapy."

"Oh, you brought gifts," she looks at the agents' tables, where they left their gifts, and looks at her, "what did you bring me?"

"Abby," says Gibbs, reprimanding her, but Joy shakes her head at the enthusiasm of the Goth, "actually I've brought you two gifts, the second depends on how much you like the first one," she points to the suitcase.

"McGee, can you give me a hand here?" He goes to the suitcase, "the red gift box, please," he collects it from the suitcase and puts it on Gibbs' table, and it seems to be a collector's edition from some author, ten paperback books in black and red covers.

"Ohh, what is that?" Abby approaches it, and runs her fingers against the covers, "that's the collector's edition of the first ten books by Sherrilyn Kenyon," "I've never heard of her before," Joy smirks, "she writes about vampires, demigods, demons and all sort of creatures of darkness."

Abby turns to Joy, "I love that," she grabs the first book, and starts ruffling it over, "hey, there are notes on the sides of it," she looks at Joy, who smiles, "Stephanie is crazy about this author, and she made some notes in all books that she wants you to pay attention to, because that's part of the second part of your gift."

She goes towards her suitcase, gets an envelope and a demon tiara, with red horns on it and puts the tiara in Abby's head, who looks confused at Joy, "what is this about?"

Joy bites her lower lip, and explains, "you see, in this series of books, they have this mighty Atlantean God called Apostollus, his birth signified the end of the ruling of Atlantis Gods and the rise of the Greek pantheon," Abby looks at her confused, "I don't understand," Joy shakes her head, "just follow me, ok, it is a long story."

She frowns and concentrates on the plot, "according to the prophecy of his half sisters, the three Fates, he would also bring the destruction of the whole world, creating a new era of chaos and suffering to Gods and humans alike. However, he was hidden between the humans by his mother, Apollomy, the goddess of destruction, who was just trying to save him from the fury of his father, who wanted him dead. That caused a huge mess of problems, because he suffered like a dog, was sold as a slave and so on. He came into full power on his twenty first birthday, and once he found out about the prophecy, he denied his destiny, and since then he lived his life fight daemons, which in the series are their version of vampires, but they don't suck blood, they suck the soul of unwary victims."

"So what?" Abby is still confused, and getting bored with the story.

"His mother gave him as a gift a Charonte Demon, named Simi." She smiles, "and considering that each one million years in Charonte Demon physiology is the equivalent of one human year, she gave him basically an infant Demon. He treats Simi like his baby child the whole series, right now she would be a young woman with maybe 18 years old, and she acts as he is her master, and is extremely protective of him. When she is not terrorizing whoever Acheron orders her to – Acheron is his human name, Acheron Parthenopaeus – she hides in his body as a tattoo. A dragon tattoo."

"I like tattoos,"

"I know," she waves the envelope in her hand, "Simi is described as having pale skin, blood red lips, tiny demon horns, and she is always dressed in fishnets and in gothic attire," she looks up and down at Abby's clothes, it is like she had just described her, "she also walks around with a bottle of barbecue sauce in her hand, so she can pour on any demon before she devours them, and she has huge leather wings, but she prefers to live as a dragon tattoo on Ash's skin."

"OK, that's all nice and fun, but what about my other gift," Joy smiles, and gives her the envelope, "these are flight tickets and entry tickets for next year's Dragon ConTM in Atlanta, during Labor day long weekend. Stephanie would love if you could come with her."

"Me, why? I don't understand?"

"There is a competition for Kenyon fans about the best cosplay of each of the characters, and Stephanie is putting all her chips on you, she wants you to come with her so she will register you as Simi," she shakes her head, "and I'm supposed to convince you to accept the invitation."

"Cosplay, am I supposed to go and pretend I'm Simi? I can't! It's too difficult, what if there are better Simis than me? What if their clothes are better? I can't, I can't!"

"Abby, Abby, relax," she smiles, "believe me, you don't have to do nothing big, just be…" she looks up and down the Goth forensic specialist, "just be yourself, and that will be enough. Of course, she also ordered huge wings to be made for you, and regarding the attire and the attitude, you don't have to change anything."

"Are you sure?" Abby is still not convinced, but Joy is adamant, "I'm sure."

Both women grin at each other.

"Now," she points to the books, "you have a lot of research to do," Abby gets the gift pack on her arms, "do these books have sex scenes?"

Joy smiles, "I'm particularly fond of the one with Kyrian with Amanda, the Talon ones, but Acheron scenes are quite hot as well."

Abby smiles, and moves towards the elevators with the books in her hands, and Joy shouts, "Zarek's scenes are quite good as well."

Abby waves at her and enters the elevator. McGee stands by Joy, "Stephanie is reading books with sex scenes in them? How old is she? Twelve?"

"She just turned twelve, but it might be my fault" he looks down at her, and Joy shrugs, "she got addicted to this author because I forgot one of mine at her house, once Faith realized what she was reading, Steffy had already bought the whole collection."

She walks towards the suitcase and gets more packages out, "this is for you," and she gives another package to Tony, "for you" another to Ziva, and "for you," another to Gibbs.

McGee keeps waiting for a gift for him, but none comes. She folds the thermal bag, and puts it inside the suitcase, and closes the zipper. He pouts, "that's it?" she nods, "that's it," she stands up and grabs the handle of the suitcase, "I'm going to autopsy, I have gifts for Ducky and Palmer, and Joy starts leaving, "can you wait for me, I won't take more than ten minutes, and we can leave together," he still looks at her, waiting for an explanation, but she just smiles at him, "ok," he mutters, and she leaves.

McGee looks around and sees Gibbs, Tony and Ziva with their gift packages and the cakes and pies on their tables, and mutters, "don't gloat, that's not nice," and he sits down, pouting.

"Oh, McPout, did she forget to bring you a gift?" he taunts him, shoving his wrapped gift in McGee's face, "stop it, Tony," he says, and goes back to his computer.

"I'm sure that it was an honest mistake, or she left it back home," says Ziva.

"Yes, sure," he mutters.

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Reviews are food for my soul.


	3. Talk over tea

_**Talk over tea**_

In the Morgue, Joy and Ducky were laughing at Palmer's antics as he gushed over his gift.

"I can't believe it, I always wanted to learn Irish tapdancing, and your family are nowgiving me shoes and paid for lessons, thanks thanks," he was looking at the shoes, with a huge smile on his face.

"Ah Jimmy, don't ever lose that," he looks at Joy, and sees a thoughtful expression on her face, "lose what, agent Buchanan?" she shakes her head, "the name is Joy, Jimmy," she stands up, and walks up to the young man, holding tap shoes in his hands, "don't ever lose this amazing sense of wonder, that anything, regardless of how simple, it still can be something extraordinary, and if you ever feel that the job is robbing that from your spirit," she looks him in the eye, and he sobers up a little, "walk away, take a time, climb a mountain, roll in the sand, anything to feel young and free again, but don't let the work consume your soul and destroy your spirit," she says, philosophically.

Jimmy nods at the agent, and sees how tired and how thin she is, and imagines that she speaks from experience, "I won't, Agent Buchanan," she frowns at him, "I won't, Joy," she smiles at him, and taps him on the shoulder.

Ducky stands up, and separates some of his brand new specialty teas bags,a gift from the Buchanan Family, and pours boiling water on them, "Mr. Palmer, I believe you have to collect some reports with Abby," he looks pointedly at Jimmy, who stutters, "oh.. but ooh I have to go to Abby's," and he leaves, leaving Joy standing in autopsy, seeming lost in thought, and Ducky studying the profiler.

She looks gaunt, having lost weight she could not afford to lose during her recovery period. Her face is very thin, and her hair had lost some of the shine that is characteristic of it, falling in dull waves over her shoulders.

"Would you like a cup of tea, my dear," she startles out of her reverie, and walks up to Ducky and sits down, gladly taking one of the hibiscus tea cups he offered her, and drinks with her eyes closed.

"How are you my dear?" she smiles at him, and asks him back, "are you asking as a friend, or as a forensic profiler?"

Ducky sighs, "initially as a friend, but I'm concerned as a medical professional as well," she rolls her shoulders and stays in silence for a moment.

"I'm tired of being tired," she says lowly, looking at the tea in her cup, "it was good to go home, but it also brought bad memories," she sips her tea, "really bad memories."

"From the first time you had to stay in your family's home after your first kidnapping," she nods, "after your coma, you stayed in your parents' house to recuperate from your torture, and you associated your parents' home with that time."

She looks to the side, "I was in a very, very dark place, Ducky," and looks down at the tea, "I felt like I was drowning in a sea of despair several times, but every time I went under there was someone there to shake me and force me to fight another day, another hour," she looks at Ducky, "even Johnny asked for leave from the marines and stayed with me for a while, forcing me to eat, to breathe, to live."

"How was this time? Did you feel like drowning again?"

She shakes her head, "no, it was different, the first weeks I just slept, between the medication and my recovery exercises, I could barely keep myself awake to eat, later on the nurse regulated my painkillers so I at least could stay awake some hours, and there was always someone hovering. Grace came over from Omaha every weekend, Hope and Faith flew in twice during the month. Mark sent letters and Johnny sent me a secure comm link saying that if I ever do that again, he will ask to be reassigned to America so he can be my bodyguard," she smiles at her siblings' worry.

"But your body needed the rest, as your wounds were very serious, you can't rush your recovery."

"I know, Doc," she shrugs, "I love them, everyone of them, but sometimes I just want to be alone for a while."

He sips his tea, "and what about our Timothy? Have you spoken to him during this time?"

She smiles, and looks down at the pattern of the floor, "we've spoken every single day," she looks up, "thank God for Skype, or our phone bill would be astronomical," she laughs a little, but Ducky can see that she is worried, "we talk shop a little, he talks about the cases, I talk about living in Montana, and unimportant stuff," she rubs her face, tiredly, "sometimes I wonder."

"What?"

"If I really should drag him into this, into my world, it is not a pretty place to be."

Ducky shakes his head, "you are mistaken, you are not dragging him into this world, he is already part of it, as an Agent, he knows the price, he knows the burden you carry," she looks at him, and Ducky keeps talking, "he understand your insecurities, and besides, you should not make decisions on his behalf, just give him the options, he will decide on his own."

She looks uncertain and insecure, "Ducky, he will want… more, and I'm not sure I can give him that, not now…" she looks down, ashamed, and plays with the empty delicate tea cup in her hands.

Ducky stretches his hand and grabs hold of her left hand, takes the cup and puts it on the table, and holds her good hand in his, "a relationship is not only about sex," she cringes at it, but Ducky keeps on, "it is about intimacy, sharing the good and bad moments, and just because you are going through a bad moment, I don't think that our Timothy will jump ship, I'm fairly certain he's wired not that way."

She looks up at Ducky, and there are tears in her eyes, that she refuses to let fall, "I keep throwing these terrible things in his path, and he keeps taking it like a good soldier, what if he decides that… I'm not worth it? What if he decides to walk away, and look for someone with fewer scars, less emotional luggage? I don't think I can take it…" she lowers her head, and tears run down her face silently.

Ducky stands up and hugs the crying agent to his chest, "oh dear, I don't think you have any idea of the hold you have over our Timothy," she hiccups and looks up at Ducky, who continues, "he loves you, he is totally, completely, madly in love with you," she cries even more, "and I don't think he could walk away, even if he wanted." He hugs her, and she hides her face in his neck and cries.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Meanwhile, Timothy walked out of the elevator and was silently hovering outside of the autopsy, just seeing his partner and girlfriend crying in the arms of the M.E.

He walks away without them noticing his presence.

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Reviews are food for my soul.


	4. Old friends

_**Old friends**_

McGee kept working on his computer for a while, after he came back from his visit to autopsy, but he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, so he didn't see Gibbs leaving his desk and standing beside his chair.

"Is something bothering you?"

McGee startles, and looks scared at Gibbs, "Boss, you… ahh I … well… I was just…" his mind is going working overtime, and Gibbs can clearly see the turmoil behind the green eyes.

"My door is open anytime, Tim," and moves back to his desk. McGee watches his boss for a moment, "Thanks Boss," and goes back to work.

Gibbs signs for his agents to close up shop, and they start to close their computers. McGee looks at his watch and looks towards the elevators, and he sees Joy walking in his direction.

She approaches his table, looks at her own empty one, and looks up in his eyes, "ready to go?"

"yes," he starts putting his overcoat to protect him from the bite of the winter wind, and sees Joy struggling with her own, as her arm in the cast got stuck on her coat sleeve. Before he moves to help, though, Gibbs goes to her and helps her to put it on.

"Thanks, boss," she mutters, and folds a thick red scarf around her head, almost burying her neck and face under it. McGee gets her cowboy hat and puts it back on her face, and she smiles, "now I'm ready go," she hands him the handle of the empty suitcase, he holds it in his left hand and gives her his right arm, and they both leave the building.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Once in the car, they stay in a comfortable silence for some moments, Joy has her head against the windowpane, just looking at the snow falling. McGee would send glances at her, but she seemed in a contemplative mood, so he kept silent.

"Turn in the next exit," she mutters.

He looks at her, "here," "here," he makes the exit, and glances at her, "keep driving until you see a Catholic church, and then find someplace to park."

He looks at her questioningly, but does not say anything. He keeps driving for fifteen minutes in the avenue, that becomes a small road, and after a curve ends in a picturesque Catholic Church, with a huge cemetery besides it.

He parks the car, but keeps the engine running, so the heat is still keeping them warm inside the car. She sighs, and looks at him, and says with a small smile, "lock the doors, and bring your scarf, it is cold out there," and Joy steps out of the car, and starts moving towards the cemetery. After a moment of hesitation, he gets his scarf, gloves, switches off the car's engine and steps out the car. He locks the cars and runs to reach Joy, as she is already moving the old iron doors of the cemetery.

She looks up at him and stretches her hand, and he holds it and she guides him along the path. The path is covered by snow, and the cold breeze keeps blowing against their bodies, and they are losing body heat rapidly, but Joy seems determined to arrive where she wants to go, and she seems to know her destination, even though the markers are covered with a thick blanket of white.

They walk between the tombs for five minutes, and finally they stop beside a huge tree, completely bare of leaves, and the skies are gray and the wind is blowing against them. She looks up at him, and she is amazed that, even though he is dying with curiosity, he hasn't said anything or questioned her actions until now. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and dances a little on his feet trying to get some warmth to it.

"I haven't forgotten your gifts," he looks up at her, "I was just trying to decide which one to deliver first, and if they were appropriate or not,"

"I'm starting to worry, why the cemetery? You are not becoming Goth, are you?"

Joy laughs a little, but McGee sees that her laughter does not reach her eyes. She squeezes his arm with her gloved hand, and points to four graves at the left side of the tree, "I would like to introduce you to some friends of mine," she points to the first grave and moves forward, "That is Anita Hernandez, Leonard Parsley, Norman Glascock and" her voice falters a little, she coughs, but she keeps going on, "Eric Gomez."

McGee's eyes glide over the headstones, each representing a member of Joy's team that was butchered almost two years ago. She keeps talking, and he feels the pressure of her small fingers on his arm, "Dimitri Korcevik was buried in the Russian Jewish cemetery in NY, in his family plot, and Lorraine Johansen was buried in San Francisco, where her mother still lives now. The ones without family to look after their bodily remains, my family organized their burials here in this small Catholic church."

She smiles a little, "the priest initially did not want to bury Eric in holy ground, as he had committed suicide, but there's nothing that money can't buy, and after mom offered a very big sum, enough to fix the roof and buy new chairs for the church, he was persuaded to bury all four here."

They stay in silence for a moment looking at the graves, only the breath of the cold wind on them, "the day we met," he looks down at her, "the first time, at the bar, I had just visited this place for the first time," she keeps looking at his eyes, and he can see the deep pain still buried in her soul, "I kept asking God, why did you spare me? Why did they have to die so I could live?"

McGee can't take it anymore, and puts his hands around her shoulders and bring her against his body, and opens his coat and tries to isolate them in a cocoon of warmth. It is all silent around them, only the white snow falling around them, and he closes his eyes and breathes on her neck, trying to keep warm, and she keeps telling her tale, "I was completely lost, feeling adrift, my body had healed but I was purposeless, faithless. Dad insisted that I come back to work, so maybe I find myself again, that vibrant part that kept me going, fighting for something bigger, greater, but even at NCIS LA the job was meaningless, my existence was meaningless. My supervisor noticed that I lacked luster in the job, I simply did not correspond to my potential, then after only a couple of weeks under her supervision she forwarded my resume to Vance and told him to take me away, to give me something else, because I was wasting away before her very own eyes."

She takes a step back and looks at him, "I arrived in DC, and I simply did not feel enthusiastic about the job, about anything, then …" she smiles, "I met you," He smiles down at her, "and suddenly my life had a purpose again, I had a reason to go on," he wipes a tear on her face, and she bites her lower lip, "what I'm trying to say here, very inarticulately, is that" she points to the graves, "they were my past, I thank God for having them in my lives, and they paved and molded my path until I got where I am now," and she puts her gloved hand over his chest, where his heart is, "but you are my future, and" she sighs and looks to one side, trying very hard to put in words what she is feeling, "every time I try to imagine my life in one, three, five years from now, I keep seeing you as part of it," she looks up, in his eyes, and he sees that she is deadly serious, "and what truly terrifies me is that like it, I like it very much."

"Am I that bad? Do I scare you that much?" he asks, and he firms his hold around her waist, mindful of her half healed wounds.

"I'm not used to the forever type of relationship," she shakes her head, "I don't even know where to start,"

McGee smiles and molds her face with his gloved hands, "Me neither, but I think we can learn together," he leans over and kisses her cold lips with his.

After some kisses, they separate and keep breathing deeply for some seconds, "I don't even know how to define us," she mutters, and he smiles, "maybe that's the beauty of it," she looks at him, confused, "we lack definition because we are unique," she smiles.

She hugs him again, and they say goodbye to the dead, and leave the cemetery.

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	5. Six years ago

_**Behavioral Analysis Unit  
Los Angeles FBI Field Office  
Six years ago**_

"Leo, how many times have I told you," a beautiful Latina woman, with long black hair and a faint Spanish accent says, "that the Bureau computers are NOT for you to play your damn games!"

"Ah, Anita, chill out, the boss is not here, he's on a conference call with the Gods in the marble halls up in the fifteenth floor," says the young computer tech, with his headphones hanging from his neck. Young, barely twenty three, he was one of the top hackers of the country, until he was forced to choose: either work for the FBI or be sent to prison. He took the smart way out, and for five years he had been the computer wizard for the LA office.

For the last five months he had been assigned to this brand new division, the Los Angeles Behavioral Unit Division, that the brass decided to open in LA, in the same mold as the original one in DC, and he was enjoying it a lot. It was a young team, with a very serious Russian Jewish descendant boss, Dimitri Korcevic, who had been transferred from NY just to head this new division, after six years being one of the SACs of the Violent Crimes Section in that city.

Anita shakes her head at the young tech, and moves away to her desk in the floor. "That boy will be the death of me," she says to the other Latino descendant in the division, "Relax, Anita," said Eric Gomez, "he's doing that only to piss you off."

His eyes are following a gorgeous babe walking in the corridor, in a professional suit and a leather case in her hand. He looks at his colleague, who is diligently working on his computer, "Babe alert, six o'clock," the man looks up from his computer, and squints his eyes and studies her through the open space of the cubicles and through the glass walls, and starts profiling her, "she's a fellow agent, young, maybe mid twenties, not married, not in a relationship either."

Eric shakes his head as he looks at his partner, "Norm, one day you have to explain how you do that, man," Norman Glascock, one of the profilers of the team, shrugs, "it is a talent, can't be explained," and goes back to his computer, "don't bother asking her out, as she will flat out refuse you."

Eric smiles, full of himself, "wanna bet?" and he cringes as his head is hit by a closed folder, "you guys are disgusting, the girl barely arrived, and you are already making bets about her," says Lorraine Johansen and she goes to her cubicle and starts studying the folder in her hands, the same one she used to hit Eric's head. She looks over the folder to Eric, as he is smiling at her, "jealous, Special Agent Johansen, we could always make a bet about you," she makes a face to him, and goes back to her folder, and Leo laughs and Eric and Leo high five each other.

The beautiful woman stops, asks directions and the agents she is talking to points towards the corner of the floor where the BAU agents sit, and she starts to walk in their direction.

Leo goes wild, "oh my God, oh my God, she's coming she's coming, she's hot she's sooo hot," Eric and Norman look at each other, both stand up and hit Leo with a head slap, "get a grip, man," says Norman. Eric just shakes his head at the tech.

"Thanks guys, I needed that."

The woman arrives at their corner of the floor, "excuse me."

Norman stands up, straightens his jacket, "yes ma'am, may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Special Agent Dimitri Korcevic," she mispronounces his name, and Norman cringes, "Dimitri is not here, he's in a meeting upstairs, maybe I can be of assistance."

She looks at the paper on her hand, "I was told to report directly to him, I'm Special Agent Joy Buchanan, from DC BAU." Eric stands up, "ohhh, so you are the famous Agent Buchanan," he looks at the agents who are now looking curiously at the stranger, and Eric explains, "she was trained by Jason Gideon himself, one of his best students," he looks her up and down and he leers at her.

Norman is shooting daggers with his eyes at him, but Eric doesn't care and keeps digging a bigger hole for himself, "tell me agent Buchanan, to what do we owe this great pleasure of your presence here in our humble abode?"

She smiles thinly at him, "I'd rather report directly to Agent Korcevic, agent…" she leaves it hanging, and he responds with his name, taking her hand in his and gallantly kissing it, "I'm Special Agent Eric Gomez, at your service," she looks at his gallantries, and says, "thanks, may I have my hand back?" Leo laughs, and Eric looks at him, irritated, and Leo covers his laugh pretending to cough, "sorry, I got stuck with… water."

She puts her leather case on top of the first empty desk, which happens to be Eric's, but Eric is not done yet, pestering the new agent, "tell me agent Buchanan," she turns to him, and looks at him patiently, "how many little green men the Bureau has successfully arrested in the last few months? I've heard that the Washington DC office thrives on looking for unexplained phenomena," he makes quotation marks with his fingers, making fun of the recently opened division in the DC office, that specialized in occultism and unexplained files, and that had been nicknamed the X-files by the entire headquarters, a homage to the series that was a success in the nineties.

She smiles, and shakes her head and approaches him, invading his personal space, "there were several successfully closed cases, which through very hard forensic investigation and profiling resulted in several arrests of people, real people, with just very psychopathic tendencies."

She smiles wolfishly at him, he starts to get worried, and she takes another step, and he gulps, "and about the alleged arrests or not of little green men, you don't have the necessary security clearance to be read into those files," his eyes become huge, and her smile gets bigger, "and everyone with half a brain knows that they are not little, nor green."

She takes a step back and looks around, and the other agents are all snickering at the duel, and she notices a very tall man, with thick eyebrows looking at the two agents, "had your fun, Gomez?" Eric turns and becomes pale, "oh, Kor, we were just… ahh."

Dimitri Korcevic approaches his agents, and stares him down and Eric slowly sits in his own chair and mutters, "we were just trying to make her feel welcome," "Really?" his voice is full of irony, and he looks at the new profiler, and stretches his hand, "I'm Dimitri Korcevic, welcome to LA, Agent Buchanan," they shake hands.

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	6. Warmth

_**Warmth**_

_**Buchanan's townhouse  
Washington DC  
**__**Present day**_

Joy informed Tim that her father insisted that she leave the small apartment she had rented, and move definitely into the family townhouse, in a historical district in Georgetown. She tried to negotiate with her parents, saying that one of her married siblings could keep it, but Maggie insisted, as Faith had bought her own dream house, Hope was not ready to settle down yet, and wanted to be free to move at a moment's notice and Temperance didn't know yet where she would be assigned once she graduated from Quantico.

The boys stayed more out of the country than in, and only needed a place to crash sometimes, so the family house in Montana or the apartments in NY were ok for the bachelors. John's family lived on base in Norfolk, and moved according to his assignment. No point in messing with it. Mark's family lived with him, in the Marine base in Germany. Also no need to change that, until he decided to quit the Marines and settle down somewhere he and his family would live on base.

So, they parked the Porsche in front of the house, and McGee admired the beautiful Georgian architecture for a moment, "Nice," she smiles at him, "mom got it on a bargain with a senator, he tried to force a new pro gun bill and was mowing down all competition, forcing competitors out of business, and manipulating results. Mom found out, ratted him out to the Joint Chiefs, and they cut the problem down," she grins, "he lost a lot of credit on the hill, and had to sell several properties to cover his gambling debts that suddenly came out to the public, so mom bought the house for one third of the price," she puts her scarf around her neck, "let's go, Dad must be worried about us," they leave the warm car, and rush to the door.

Joseph opens the door and the two youngsters enter, he rapidly closes the door to avoid the warm air escaping. They get their coats off, leave it hanging on the hooks by the entrance corridor, and follow Joseph, "come close to the fire," he leads them to an ample living room, where a roaring fire can be seen and several blankets are thrown over comfortable looking sofas.

Joy lays down on one of the sofas and immediately covers herself with one of the blankets, "burr, cold," she shivers.

Joseph smiles, "dinner will be served in half an hour," he looks to McGee, "would you like something to drink?" McGee sits down by the fire, and enjoys the warmth entering his clothes, he looks at Joseph, "something warm, maybe tea?"

He smiles and looks at Joy, who can barely be seen from her hideout under the blankets, "Joy?"

"Honeymilk, boiling hot, Dad," he nods, "a tea and hot honeymilk coming," he squeezes Tim's shoulder and leaves for the kitchen.

Tim is uncomfortable for a moment, "maybe I should go help him."

"Relax, he likes playing the lord of the keep for guests," she says from her blanket nest. Tim smiles at her, as only her nose and mouth can be seen, "are you really that cold?"

"I hate cold, if I could I would live in a tropical paradise, like Miami or Cuba."

"There are hurricanes in those places."

"maybe Hawaii then."

"earthquakes and volcanos."

"Argh," she sits down and puts her head out of the blankets, "anywhere you suggest then?"

He smiles, looks in the direction of the kitchen, stands up and goes sit with Joy, gets his shoes off and hides under the blankets with her, "what are you planning?"

"you are the one that said men are good bed warmers, so why not?" he lays down on the leather sofa, and drags Joy so she is lying on top of him, and covers both of them with the blanket.

He starts running his hand on her back, atop of the blankets, and she wiggles a little trying to find a more comfortable spot. He feels himself responding to the close proximity and Joy freezes.

He exhales, "I can't control it, just ignore it."

She sighs, "this wasn't what I planned when I invited you over," she mutters against his chest.

He supports his chin on her curly hair, "what did you have planned?"

"We would sit down, have a nice meal, laugh a little, talk, maybe snuggle a little, then kiss goodbye and I would go to bed frustrated and irritated," she says, and after a pause, "and cold."

He smiles against her curls, "at least this way you get to be warm," she laughs a little, and closes her eyes, enjoying the heat of the fire and of the warmth of the man under her.

She soon fell asleep, lulled by his heartbeat. He followed her after some minutes.

Joseph checked on them, found them asleep, covered them with another blanket, added more wood to the fire, and left them rest.

Their hot drinks could wait.

* * *

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	7. Misgivings and mistrust

_**LA  
FIVE YEARS AGO**_

"Suspect is moving east on Main Street," says Dimitri on the comm link, "he's armed and dangerous, I repeat, do not engage."

The team moved as a unit, following the suspect through the backyards of the LA suburbs. Some people looked out of the windows, but the agents signalled for them to retreat into their homes. They were used to gang activity in the area, so they knew better.

They called the children in, and shut the doors.

They were chasing a hit killer, who had been raping and killing Latino women in three different neighbourhoods in greater LA area. The community was in panic, and after the third killing the police called in the FBI, who assigned the BAU team to it.

They tracked it down to a women traffic ring that was working in LA, with connections in San Francisco and Mexico, connected to a drug cartel on the border with Mexico. They were trafficking women onto US soil, using them as prostitutes, and sometimes selling them to other pimps for more prestige or drugs.

Whenever one of these ladies tried to escape, they were found literally butchered, cut into pieces.

The BAU team had been able to track it down to the ring, and transmitted the drug cartel information to DEA and Vice. Now, their main concern is to catch the bastard who had been using a kitchen cleaver to kill the runaway women.

They tracked the suspect to the end of the road, where an old dilapidated house was. Anita with hand signs indicated that the agents should spread out, Joy and Eric went around the house towards the back door, Norman and Lorraine approached the front door slowly.

They entered slowly, checking every room for their suspect, "are you sure he's here, Leo?" whispers Anita in her comm link, and hears the voice of the tech, "we were tracking him with infrared cameras, he's further down the house, to the left."

Anita advanced with Norman and Lorraine covering her six, they were checking slowly each room.

Meanwhile, Eric and Joy check the windows on the back, and approach the backdoor. Joy prepares to enter the house, but she is stopped by Eric, "wisdom before beauty," she smiles and lets him enter first, they make a sweep of the room, it is a kitchen, with blackened walls, showing signs that a kitchen fire caused this house to be abandoned. Eric opens a door, which he finds out is of the kitchen cupboard; he turns to Joy, "nothing here," and they keep advancing towards the other room. They enter a corridor, check both sides and keep advancing, Eric in the front and Joy covering his six.

They enter a room, that is completely dark, and they blink owlishly, trying to adjust to the darkness. Joy hears a noise to the right, and sees a faint shadow and points her gun and her torch towards it, "FBI, FREEZE!" the shadow advances towards her and she shoots once, but it keeps advancing, and she sees a faint reflection of her torch's light on the blade of the cleaver on his hand and gets ready to shoot him again, but two shots are heard before she pulls the trigger. There is noise as the body of the killer falls on the floor with a thud at their feet, the cleaver still in his hand.

The other agents rush to the room, and point their lights towards the dark room, and see Eric and Joy standing over the killer's dead body, his chest with three bullet holes bleeding profusely.

"Why didn't he stop? I didn't miss my shot," asks Joy to no one. Anita checks his neck, and verifies that he is indeed dead. She looks up at Joy, and she's looking at the dead man, and she can see despair in her face.

"He didn't want to live in prison, so he took the easy way out," says Eric, standing by the dead man. He puts his hand on her shoulder, squeezes in support for a bit, and leaves.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The agents are back to the office, typing their reports, and talking in low voices about their case. Agent Korcevic comes out of his office, "Buchanan, my office, now."

She looks at the other agents, sighs, locks her computer and goes to Dimitri's office.

Leo rolls on his chair closer to Norm and Eric, "Do you think he's going to chew her out?"

Eric looks cross at Leo, and returns to his report, "Why would he? She didn't do anything wrong."

Leo shrugs, "She hesitated, man, she should have shot the man again, she screwed up."

Eric looks at Leo, "She gave him a kill shot, she believed that should have been enough, it is not her fault that he kept coming."

"It still could have ended badly, for both of you," says Norman.

Eric looks towards the glass walls of Dimitri's office, and sees him talking to Joy, "But it didn't."

In Dimitri's office, the two agents talk.

"I would like to hear what happened out there," says Dimitri.

"I saw the suspect advancing towards us, gave him fair warning, he didn't stop, I shot him, it is all in my report, sir."

"I read the report," says Dimitry, "what I want to know is why you hesitated?"

"I didn't hesitate sir," she says carefully, "I shot him to incapacitate him."

"And yet your field partner had to finish the job, as he didn't stop with your first shot," says Dimitri.

"I didn't shoot to kill him, just to incapacitate him," Dimitri shakes his head, "next time," he approaches her, "if you have to choose between incapacitating a scumbag or putting your partner's life in danger," he leans and speaks close to her face, "shoot to kill."

She gulps, but doesn't back down, "I wasn't aware that we were judge and executioners now, sir," he shakes his head, "in this job, we are not hunting humans anymore, Buchanan," he points to his desk, where a pile of new cases were waiting to be distributed and assigned to the team, "these people, these creatures, they left all vestige of decency and human compassion behind, and act and kill like animals, just to enjoy the pain and suffering in other human beings," he looks at her seriously, "so like animals, sometimes they have to be put out of their misery, and it is our job to ensure that they don't hurt anyone anymore."

He looks at the young agent, and sees that his speech made effect, he turns to his desk, "Dismissed."

She silently glides out of his office, and he opens the first file on his incoming tray.

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	8. The library

_**The library**_

_**Washington DC  
Buchanan townhouse  
Present day**_

There is a knock on the door, and Joseph comes to check who it is.

"Hi, Mr. Buchanan, is Joy in?" says McGee.

"Sure, come on in," McGee enters, and starts taking off his warm winter coat, "she's in the library, she was asleep the last time I checked on her, and," he stops McGee before he goes in the direction he indicated, "the name is Joseph, Tim, I've told you a thousand times."

McGee smiles, and leaves his scarf and gloves on a piece of furniture before going towards the library in the back of the townhouse. He knows that it is in the back of the house, but he had never come to this part of this house in his last visit three days ago. He opens slowly the door and freezes when he sees the interior of the room: it is the room he saw in his dream while Joy wasn't yet out of the woods, with some minor differences. The comfortable leather couch was still there, close to several shelves full of books. There were no books of Thom E Gemcity in them, but there were cookbooks and different Bible versions in some shelves. The wall in the back, close to the windowpanes that are facing the backyard, is not painted orange, but a dull pale yellow, and there are pictures of the whole Buchanan clan covering the wall. He looks to the other side, and smiles when he sees the old piano, covered with a delicate crochet piece. There is a cello supported by a big chair, and the bow is laying on top of the piano, as if someone was playing and stopped just for a break. Or a nap.

He looks down to the sleeping woman under the warm covers on the leather sofa, and kneels close to her head. He plays softly with her hair, and she doesn't stir, her breathing sniffling a little as she had caught a mild cold during her first week back in DC, that forced Ducky to postpone her return to desk duty for another week.

"You don't have to hurry to return, my dear," said Ducky, "the last thing we need now is you with a mild fever running yourself ragged in headquarters, so take your time."

He plays with a curl, and she blinks owlishly at him, "hey," "hey," she sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes like a little child, which brings a smile to his face, "what time is it?" he runs his hand on her arms, "obviously past your bedtime," she makes a face at him, and he sits besides her and brings her to his lap, and she molds her body to his and cover them both with the blanket.

She rubs her face in his neck, against his five o'clock shadow, and they stay in silence for a moment, "how were things in the office today?"

Tim shrugs, "the same as always, we arrived, Gibbs informed us we had a dead petty officer, Ziva terrorized us with her driving, Tony got a head slap, Jimmy said something inappropriate, Ducky did the autopsy, while telling us a long story that we had heard a thousand times before, we found a suspect, Gibbs scared him until he confessed, case closed."

Joy smiles against his neck, "wow, very busy indeed."

"Yes, it was," he moves her head, so he can look at her face, and they study each other for some minutes. "excited about coming back on Monday?"

she smiles, "very much, I long to go back to the breakneck rhythm again."

He touches her forehead with his, and closes his eyes, "I miss having you in the field," he mutters, he leans over and tries to kiss her, "I've just had a cold, you will get my cooties," she says, moving away from the kiss, but he smiles, "I don't mind your cooties," and kisses her.

They hadn't engaged in anything further than some kissing since she came back to DC, and even though he had promised to be patient, he wanted at least a little bit more than just one or two kisses.

"McGee," she mutters, with her eyes closed, as he slides his mouth to her neck and start suckling her there, she moans and feels McGee moving her to better adjust her in his lap, and he leans back into the sofa and brings her body to lay on top of his, all the time running his hand over her back underneath her jumper, which brings goose bumps to her skin.

"McG…." She tries again, but he silences her with a kiss, and talking became something of the past, as he demanded with his lips and his tongue the same ardour that he was showing.

She simply closes her eyes and enjoys the ride, the careful worship of her body by his expert hands and mouth, and shivered when he turned his attention further south, she tried to stop his hand from going further, but one of his hands had lifted her jumper and his mouth attached itself to one of her nipples and he bites softly, causing her to jump slightly.

"TIM," he kiss the skin he just bit, "this is just for you, don't worry, just relax."

She moans as he keeps kissing her, leaving her breathless and finally one of his hands reaches its goal and start massaging her. She bucks, but one of his arms holds her firmly against his torso, and she hides her face against his neck, and moans, as he continues to attack.

"Tim, please, I…" he keeps kissing her neck and biting her ear, and whispers, "just relax, let it go," she bites her lower lip, trying to prevent another moan to surface, "just let it go," she moves against his hold, but he is restless, "come on, let it go."

She moans, and shakes against his torso, succumbing to his ministrations, and he feels her surrender to his touch, and the faint vibration of her release against the skin of his fingers. Her arms are around his torso, and she had buried her face against his neck to muffle the sounds of her release, so her father would not storm into the library.

For a while, only their ragged breathing could be heard. Tim closed his eyes and tried to focus only on the woman in his arms, and ignore any other instinct that was ordering him to do something that she wasn't ready for yet.

Once he felt he was back to his controlled self, he opened his eyes and saw her brown eyes studying him, "what about you?"

"I'm fine,"

"But…"

He shakes his head, and says seriously, "Joy, I'm fine, this wasn't about me, it was about you," he kisses her softly, but stops before they get all over each other again, "it wasn't about me, it was all about you."

They stay in silence for some moments, just enjoying the close proximity of their bodies, waiting for the ardour to cool down. After a while, Timothy kisses her on her forehead, and moves her from his lap, but still keeps her leaning over his body, her head supported on his shoulder.

"Have you heard anything from the FBI?" he asks about something that had been in the back of his mind the whole week, as Faith and Hope, along with Hotch and the other members of the BAU, got the evidence they collected during the investigation of her second kidnapping and requested the reopening of the investigation on the deaths of the LA BAU profilers.

The first time around, Joy had not been released from the hospital yet when the Internal Affairs officers went to crucify her as the only remaining teammember of what they considered the failed profilers team. They wanted to pin the blame on her as the team did not recognize the downward spiral their member and colleague was in, and they also suggested that she had been as damaged as he had was only through very dangerous political manoeuvrers of the clan that she wasn't arrested for dereliction of duty, but they gave her an ultimatum, either quit or retire,anyway,as the brass, just to save face, didn't want her to be in the Bureau anymore.

She sighs, and rubs her face again, tiredly.

"Faith said that they accepted their request for reopening the case, and they set up the hearings for two weeks from now."

He tightens his hold on her, "are they going to request your testimony again?"

she nods, "and reopen all old wounds."

He rubs his chin on her head, thinking, "but you can go better prepared this time."

She sighs again, "the problem with these hearings is that most of the time, they don't want the truth, they are not ready for the truth, they just want to assign blame," she plays with the blanket, "but if we don't have the hearings, their records will never be clean again, and they will have died in disgrace."

He leans back and studies her face, and sees that there is now some color in it.

"They didn't die in disgrace, they died doing their jobs, doing what they liked the best," he says, and she looks at him, and he continues, "they died slaying dragons, but sometimes, the dragons win."

They hug, and stay in silence in the warm library.

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Reviews are food for my soul.


	9. Woman's fury

_**LA  
Four years ago**_

"LEO, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU," Norman looks, smiling, at Leo, who has a panicked face, "you better run, she is really going to kill you."

Leo throws himself on the floor, and makes himself scarce, hiding under the tables of the other agents who are snickering at him. Others shake their heads, as he had committed a very big sin.

Hope had visited Joy in the LA Office, and flirted shamelessly with Eric, Norman and Leo, which greatly irritated the female agents in the team. Joy grinned, grabbed her sister's arm and dragged her out of the room, saying goodbye and happy Independence Day, and left so they could enjoy the long weekend of Independence Day. They decided to go to try going surfing on Orange County beautiful shore, so they put on tight wetsuits and enjoyed the sunny weekend.

Joy chose a full body suit, but Hope decided to show her curves in a short sleeved one, but she spent more time in a tiny string bikini being admired by the strong muscular surfers than trying the new sport.

Joy took the water like a fish, taking classes the four days, and being praised by her instructor on how fast she got the basics.

The problem is that they weren't aware that they had been followed, and Eric and Leo followed the two sisters and watched them from afar. Leo used high powered zoom lenses and took several pictures of Hope in the tiny bikini, and Eric insisted that he takes some pictures of Joy in thewetsuit as well.

They left before the two sisters realized the invasion of privacy, and on Monday morning they were admiring the pictures of the two agentson their computers.

The problem is that Leo decided to send one of the pictures to Norman by email, one where the two sisters were standing side by side by a surf board stuck standing on the sand, Hope in her tiny string bikini and Joy in a full body suit, that didn't show much skin but suggested all her curves, and they were both laughing hysterically.

Norm didn't notice what was in the attachment and forwarded it to another agent, who sent to another agent, and well, in matter of minutes, the picture had circulated the whole building.

Joy arrived in the middle of the morning on that Monday, and she immediately noticed the strange looks people were throwing in her direction. She entered the elevator and could feel the burning gaze of the male agents on her, she even snarled at one who was leering at her.

"What?" He left the elevator scared.

She was already fuming by the time she got out of the elevator on her floor, and snarled at any man measuring her up and down, she barely got to her desk and Dimitri got out of his office:

"Buchanan, my office, NOW!"

she sighs, and goes to talk to her supervisor. The women just watched, waiting for the fireworks that would explode, as soon as Dimitri gave her the print out of the email he had received that morning.

The women snickered, and sent a poisonous glance towards the other three agents.

"You are so dead," said Lorraine.

"I don't think we will even find their corpses once she's done with them," says Anita.

The agents watch Joy looking astonished at the picture and Dimitri lecturing her with wide movements of his hands. She looks towards the cubicles, and all agents go back to their computers, pretending to be working.

She squints, and they can almost see the steam coming out of her ears, she is that mad. Leo hides behind his cubicle division.

"what do you think she'll do?"

Eric smiles at the tech, "relax, that was one of the nicest ones, she's not that mad."

Norman shakes his head, not so sure of her benevolence, "she will kill him."

Eric looks towards the agent, who is marching out of Dimitri's glass office with a furious stance, as soon as she opens the door, her voice echoes through the floor of the department, "LEO, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU."

He was almost at the last cubicles leading to the door that went to the glass corridor, but Joy saw the strange movement of the agents, giving way with their chairs so he could crawl under the desks, and marched towards him.

He crawls from under a desk and stops right at two feminine court shoes, at the end of long mocha tanned legs, he looks up and sees a very pissed Buchanan looking at him. She leans down and gets his earlobe and twists, and drags him back to the corner where the BAU is assigned.

"Can you explain what in your chickenshit brain were you thinking, when you decided that my private life was gossip fodder to spread IN THE INTEROFFICE EMAIL!" she shouts, and throws him forcefully on his chair, and the small wheels of it growl under his weight.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to be sent out," he points to Norman, "it is Norm's fault, he's the one who forwarded to the biggest gossip in the building."

Norm lifts his hands in surrender, "I didn't see what was in the file, I swear," and Joy approaches him and he pinkie swears, "scout's honor, I just read the title the words top secret and important and forwarded it to the counter intelligence section."

She laughs, "who actually read the email and then spread for the whole building, thanks Norman," she says, her voice full of irony.

She looks at Eric, who lifts his hands in surrender, "you," she looks at the terrified tech, "and you will pay for that, because no one pisses off a Buchanan and goes unpunished."

"But..."

"But what?" she says, and goes to her desk and start looking for something on her desk, she turns to the girls who had been watching until now, "Anita, do you still have that beauty emergency package in your desk?"

Anita sits straighter, "my Brazilian hot wax?"

Joy smiles wolfishly, "yes," she turns and walks back to Leo, who is almost folding over himself, and he looks terrified to the roll of duct tape on her hand.

"Leo, did you like my pictures?"

"Uhm?" she smiles, and he starts to get afraid, very afraid.

"ah, well, you see…"

"do you want to know how me and my sister get those silky, smooth," she leans over to him, and whispers on his ear, "hairless bodies?"

He gulps, as he had never seen Joy acting that way, and that is definitely freaking him out, "ahhh well, uhm…?"

"ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!" She shouts.

"YES," he shouts, terrified, "I mean, that was, wow, really hot, you guys in wetsuits, and oh…. Very hot…"

She smiles wolfishly and he starts sweating as she has her face very close to him and she is looking at him as if he is a very juicy steak, "so you will learn," she gets a piece of duct tape and tapes his arm to one of the arms of the chair.

"what?" he asks.

She continues, "you will experience," and tapes the his other arm as well, and puts the tape away "how much pain a woman goes through to feel beautiful for jerks," she rips his shirt open, the buttons flying into all directions, showing his hairy chest, and he really is freaking out now, "like yourself."

She stands back and he sees Anita plugging in a strange device, and pouring a goo-y thing in a machine and mixing it, "what is she doing?" he asks, and looks at Joy, who looks back at Anita and Lorraine, who are twisting their hands like twin evil witches.

"is it hot yet?"

Lorraine looks up from the strange machine, "almost done," and they keep mixing the thing.

Eric and Norm stand up trying to see what they are doing, "is that…" they look horrified at each other, and look down at the computer tech.

"What?" he looks terrified at the two agents, who are giggling like schoolgirls.

"I'll be merciful," says Joy, and gets another piece of duct tape, and covers his mouth, "I promise it won't hurt," he looks betrayed at her, and the two agents bring the warm mix to Joy's reach, and she continues, "much."

At that time, even Dimitri was standing by the door of his office, watching what possible torture his agent could be inflicting at the computer tech. Most of the other agents on the floor had stopped all pretences of working and were all standing, watching the drama unfold.

She uses a wooden spatula to collect some of the goo, touches the mix with her fingertip to test the texture and temperature, turns to him and slowly spreads a thin layer of the mix on his chest, over his chest hair. He moans when he feels the heat, but it does not burn, he just looks confused at her. She puts the spatula back in the small bowl, and smiles down at him, leans over and gets one of the corners of the solidifying mix. Once he realizes what she's going to do, it is too late, his eyes become huge, he shakes his head in desperation, but she pulls with all her strength, very fast.

His shout is muffled by the duct tape.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Assistant Director Christopher Klein left his office to go to the bathroom, after a long and boring morning on a conference call with the Idaho Office. Sometimes, this job was only about politics, but sometimes different things happened, as the email he received this morning, one of the profilers - a very serious agent, as far as he knew her, he only had the pleasure of talking with her one or two times - who was on a beach in a very tight wetsuit surfing, along with a gorgeous blonde, laughing.

The picture transmitted such happiness that it brought a smile to the face of the old paper pusher, but he imagined that the young lady would not be very happy with whoever invaded her privacy.

He turns the corner of the corridor, and goes towards the bathrooms, which are located at the end of the corridor of his floor, and sees a scene that makes him stop in his tracks. The computer tech of the BAU team is tied to his chair, naked from the waist up, and his chest is naked, baby butt naked. Where some very serious hair used to be before, it is only irritated skin, and some red dots indicate where the hair has been pulled very violently, bleeding a little. His face is down to his chest, and there are faint tear tracks on his face, and he looks terribly tired.

The AD approaches the agent, and looks at the agent, "What the hell is this?" he opens the door to the bullpen, and points to the tech, "Can any of you tell me who is responsible for that?" the agents all become dead quiet, but they all look at Special Agent Buchanan, who is working on her computer on something.

The AD approaches her and shouts, "Care to explain what the hell are you doing to my agent?"

She jumps, "Hi sir, who?" he points to Leo, sitting forlorn in the corridor, she smiles, and the AD gets even angrier.

"Ah that, I'm not finished with him yet," She moves to the printer, gets something there, smiles at what is written, and moves back to her desk, collects her duct tape roll and goes to the corridor, leaving the AD staring at her back.

Dimitri walks out of his office and looks at the AD, who he sees is starting to get very mad at his profiler, "what is going on in this office today? Has everybody gone mad?"

Dimitri shakes his head, laughing a little, "well, it was either let her do that or she would castrate him, and I think Leo still want to have children someday, so…" he shrugs, "the hair will grow back."

She puts the paper on his chest and adds duct tape to hold it in place. She gently kisses his head, and he looks tiredly at her. She turns him towards the agents who are watching the scene, and they can clearly see in huge bold letters on the paper stuck to his chest, "I PISSED OFF A BUCHANAN, AND NOW I'M PAYING THE PRICE FOR IT."

She returns to the bullpen, and looks around at all the male agents who had been leering at her earlier, and now are looking at her warily, "anyone who still has my picture on his computer by five pm this afternoon, will receive the same treatment he did, with one detail," she pauses, and the men all cringe, "I will use the Brazilian wax on a body part very, very delicate for you guys." The men gulp, and hurry to delete the email.

She approaches the AD, who is looking at her, astonished.

She stops before him, "have you received my picture, AD Klein?"

He looks at her, warily, "Yes, I did," he looks at the duct tape in her hand, and the smart smile on her face, as she leans over to him.

"Delete it, for your own good," and she returns to her computer, and goes back to work.

The AD looks at her, shakes his head, and starts to move back to the corridor, "we Buchanans we don't get mad," he stops and looks back at her, "we get even."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Still that week, Eric saw his car being invaded by rodents – that he was absolutely terrified of, and he screamed like a little girl – and Norman had his hair painted orange, thanks to a very nice chemical component added to his usual gel.

* * *

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	10. Internal Affairs audience

**_Hoover Building  
Internal Affairs audience  
Present day_**

A somber group of senior agents entered the hearing room and all present in the room quiet down and stand up, waiting until they sit down in their respective seats to return to their chairs.

They open the folders before them and shuffle the papers inside, and Assistant Director George Wiltman initiated the proceedings.

"We are reopening the Internal Affairs case #8,346, regarding the investigation on the murders of Special Agents Anita Hernandez, Dimitri Korcevic, Lorraine Johansen, Leonard Parsley and Norman Glascock by their colleague, Special Agent Eric Gomez."

"The purpose of this hearing is to decide if it the new evidence which will be presented during the next meetings is conclusive enough to expurgate the misconduct marks on their records, and to erase the dereliction of duty accusations from their files."

He lifts his eyes from the paper he is reading and looks at the people sitting in this small room. He sees former AD Christopher Klein, sitting along with two other agents from LA; the tight knit Buchanan clan sitting together, Special Agents Faith and Hope Buchanan waiting patiently for their time in the witness stand, and former FBI now NCIS Special Agent Joy Buchanan, sitting with a very interesting group of people. _It must be her new team in_ NCIS, thinks the AD.

There are some other faces, from another time and another place, but everyone would have their chance to speak.

"I would like to call to the stand Special Agent George Thomas, from Los Angeles Office."

A blond man dressed in an impeccable suit walks to the stand, and gets ready to give his testimony.

"State your name and position in the FBI."

"I'm special agent George Thomas, and I work at the Missing Person Investigation team in LA."

"Please tell us how you met the aforementioned agents, and your relationship with them."

"I've met them during the Gabborgini's case. We were…"

He describes how they helped him track down a serial murderer and save the life of a seven year old girl.

Thomas stops and takes a deep breath, and looks down to where Joy is sitting with her team.

"I really admired the work of the LA BAU, and I can attest to their professionalism and dedication to their jobs. We couldn't have had a happy ending to that case if they hadn't helped us then."

"Was there any outward sign that there was something amiss with any of those agents? Any fights, differences of opinion?"

"They would discuss their opinions very loudly, but there was never any outward aggression between the members. All seemed very centered and focused in their jobs."

"We would like to call to the stand Special Agent Marianne Willows…"

"We would like to call to the stand Special Agent Heidy Bruckheimer…"

"We would like to call…"

The afternoon went on and on with a long list of testimonies. They gave a break later after two p.m., and Hope and Faith miraculously started to give out home-made sandwiches, pieces of pies and carafes full of rich smelling coffee, from two freezer bags they had collected from their car as soon as the break had been announced.

Tony starts munching his sandwich, "thank god you Buchanans always bring food wherever you go, I was starving."

Faith smiles and pats his head, handing him a chicken pie slice, carefully wrapped in kitchen paper, "I have a teenage daughter and four year old son, I know how children need something to eat after behaving for hours," he looks at her, cross, "enjoy your pie," he keeps on eating.

Gibbs is watching Joy sitting silently shredding the wrapping of her sandwich, "how many more witnesses are they going to bring?" he sips his coffee.

She looks up at him, "We arranged to have five people to act as witnesses with favorable testimonies to the team, and now after the break they are going to bring the non favorable ones," she looks down at her half eaten sandwich, and throws it in the garbage can.

"Do you have any idea who is going to testifyagainst them?" asks McGee, sitting by her side and finishing his piece of chicken pie. He wipes his mouth and faces her, waiting for an answer.

She grimaces, "they haven't disclosed who would take the stand on the opposite side," she looks around herself, at the NCIS team and says, "you guys probably shouldn't be here, you should be back in the squad room working."

"We are off rotation until this matter is settled," says Ziva, "we can't afford to go back to our everyday life investigating cases if this is still hanging over your head."

"I hope I'm not spoiling any plans you might have for the evening, as it seems it might be a long hearing," says Joy.

"Ah nah… my date cancelled anyway," says Tony.

"I had nothing planned," says Ziva.

McGee shrugs, he would have been with Joy anyway, and all of them look at Gibbs, who is smirking at his coffee.

"What?" he asks, uncomfortable with the stares at him.

"You have somewhere to go, Boss?" DiNozzo is dying with curiosity, it's been a while since he had seen such an enigmatic smile on Gibbs' face.

Gibbs smirks but says nothing. He sips his coffee.

The Buchanans are not satisfied though, and Hope gets close to his side, "anyone we know?"

He keeps on sipping his coffee, he just glances at her and smiles. Hope is not happy with that, and grabs his coffee cup out of his hand, "hey, that's mine," she holds it away from his reach, unafraid of his steely stare at her.

"I'm holding your coffee hostage until you tell us who you are having a date with," he snarls at her, but she is unmoved by it, "so, come on, spill it."

"Don't you ever get tired of nosing around other people's lives?" asks Gibbs, frustrated.

Hope smirks, "that's what makes me a good investigator, a deep unsatisfied curiosity about everyone and everything," she moves the coffee to within Gibbs' reach, he tries to grab it but she moves it away again, "so, what's her name?"

The other agents are smiling at the young Buchanan's bravery to needle Gibbs. Gibbs sighs, and folds, "I was going out with Dana again, but I can call and cancel it," all the Buchanan women smile, "may I have my coffee back?"

Tony is trying to hold back his laughter, "Is it Dana now? The first date went well then, I guess."

Faith shakes her head, "he succumbed to the charm of one of mom's matchmaking spells."

Hope sees the smile on Joy's face, the first real one since the hearing started, and sits down by her side, and starts babbling, "oh, but I'm sure Joy wouldn't want to spoil your date with Dana," Joy shakes her head, laughing at her sister, who continues, "after all such an event must be celebrated, not postponed."

Hope turns to her sister, "remember when Mark was on leave and we went to New York to see Cats?"

Joy nods, "Dana's date with Gibbs could be like a musical, but now with two foxes: the silver haired one and the red orange one."

Joy is trying to hold back her laughter, but Hope is not done, "two foxes dancing down the road, a red and a silver one, down in the woods."

Joy is snorting and her laughter is feeling the air, and Hope continues, "two foxes foxing around, I wonder how do they get the fur out of the way whenever they…" she wiggles her eyebrows, "you know."

Joy hides her face in her sister's neck and keeps on laughing, hysterically.

Hope looks at Gibbs and blinks at him, asking silently for forgiveness of using him asthe butt of a joke and keeps on trying to keep her sister laughing, feeling her shoulders release the tension of the morning hearing, "I wonder if there is a protocol for such dates, something like the mating of hedgehogs."

Joy is snorting with mirth, and Gibbs has a small smile on his face, and lifts his eyebrow questioningly.

Faith smiles at the two sisters and turn to the other agents who are looking at the sisters as if they lost their minds.

"Haven't you ever heard how hedgehogs make love?"

Tony is looking confused at the sisters, from one to the other, and they are all laughing, "no, how?"

Joy lifts her head from Hope's neck and looks at the other agents, wiping the tears of laughterfrom her face, "that's a very old joke, Tony."

Hope is grinning, and McGee is grinning as well, as he sees some of the gloomy air has lifted from Joy's face.

Hope leans towards Tony and Ziva, who lean over towards her, and whispers:

"They make love _very,_ _very_ carefully."

And she starts laughing hysterically with Joy, who every time she looks at Gibbs starts laughing all over again.

"That really isn't the mental image I wanted from my boss right now," and keeps on laughing.

Ziva is confused, "why?"

"I believe it would be because of the spines, my dear Ziva," says Ducky, who approaches the agents and is relieved to see the happy air around them, as he expected them to be very tense after the hearing. He looks at Gibbs and shows him discretely the folder in his hand. In it he has the results of the new autopsy on Eric Gomez. Gibbs nods to Ducky and turns to the laughing agents.

"I believe they are ready to start again," says Gibbs.

They see the movement of people going inside thehearing room and stand up. Joy tries to stop laughing, and Hope does some breathing exercises with her, which makes her laugh even harder.

"In, out, in, out," she moves her hand up and down, mimicking the breathing activity. Joy closes her eyes and tries to calm down a little.

"Now repeat after me: their balls against the wall, their heads on a spike," Hope says.

"Their balls against the wall, their heads on a spike," Joy laughs a little, but focuses again.

"Ok repeat after me: may they burn in the burning fires of hell," Joy snorts, but repeated after Hope between guffaws of laughter.

They open their eyes, and Hope can see that the fire is back into her sister's eyes, the gloomy air that was around her is gone, "give them hell sis," they hug for a moment.

"Love you sis,"

"Love you too, now go kick their asses."

The agents enter into the audience room, but Gibbs stops Hope before she leaves to take the leftovers to the car.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

She looks at him, outraged, "Moi? Why would I do anything like that?" she smirks and blinks at him, and walks saucily to the parking lot. Gibbs just shakes his head at the blonde.

There is a murmur in the room as they all settle down in their chairs. The prosecution witnesses start being called out.

"We would like to call to take the stand Mrs. Allison Watts."

McGee immediately feels Joy tensing up, and he moves his hand to hold hers in his. Her previously relaxed face loses all cheerfulness, and becomes an unmoving mask, not giving any clue of her inner turmoil. He feels her delicate manicured nails digging into his hand, as a woman in her early forties comes out of the back of the room and takes the stand. After she is sworn in, she turns to thehearing room and he can feel the waves of hatred being directed towards Joy. She had been a beautiful woman back in the day, but now suffering and hatred had changed her face, turning her into a bitter woman.

Ziva leans towards Joy, as she is sitting behind her and whispers, "Who is she?"

Joy takes a while to answer, and then she finally whispers, "One of my worst nightmares."

* * *

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	11. Flesh and Bones

**_Flesh and bones  
_****_Los Angeles  
Three years ago_**

"We have three victims, ages between seven to twelve, all girls, being kidnapped and killed in Monterrey area. They went missing on their way to school, in plain light of the day," says Dimitri. He puts some pictures on the screen of the projector, and the team watches the crime scene pictures pop up one after the other.

"The local LEOs decided to call the FBI after the third kidnapping, they already have a missing persons unit on site, but our people requested our insight as they saw this," he pops another picture.

They see the corpse of a child, barely recognizable as a human being, as most of the skin had been ripped apart of the muscle beneath it.

"Our M.E. said that initial findings indicate that whoever our unsub is, he has a good knowledge of the human body and great craft with the use of a knife," he says, passing down the blown up pictures of the crime scene.

Norman frowns at the pictures, "were they able to identify which girl is this victim?"

"It is the third victim," says Joy, looking sadly between the picture of the child still alive and smiling and the other where only the muscle and bone could be seen, "the body mass and the facial structure are a match."

Dimitri nods, "she was found inside a plastic bag by the river close to a meat processing plant, fifteen miles away from the spot where she had been kidnapped, by a homeless man and his dog. Initially he thought the dog had found leftovers from the plant, but when he saw the hand hanging out of the bag…"

Leo supports his head on his hands, and looks disgusted at the pictures, "what kind of monster would do this?"

"The type that must be stopped," says Eric firmly. He looks at Dimitri, "what about the other victims?"

"They are doing a canvass search on the same area, and they found two other bags with human remains. They sent it to analysis to see if they are a match for our missing kids."

Anita is studying the pictures in her hand, and looks up at their boss, "when do we leave?"

"Right now. Leo, separate all equipment we might need, we want you working from here, as soon as we have more samples and information we will forward it to you for analysis, ride the people in the forensic department hard so we get our results first."

"On it, Kor."

He turns to his other agents, "pack your things, we are leaving in half an hour," the agents start to stand up, "I'm not finished," they freeze, and Dimitri sighs, "this last victim has been missing for four days, and the body was found last night. By the decay rate, they estimate that he killed her in the initial forty eight hours."

All agents are staring at Dimitri, and he hates what he has to do, "a child was reported missing this morning, she fits the victims' profile. She left her home at seven am this morning, but never made it to school."

The agents all tense, "we have a forty eight hour window, even less, before she joins them," he points to the mangled mass in the pictures, "good luck, and Godspeed."

The agents silently leave the room.

He picks the picture of smiling ten year old, Angela Watts, and mutters, "and may God have mercy of us all."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The team arrives in Salinas City and the team divides in two, one goes directly to the sheriff's office to check the ongoing investigation of the previous victims, and other goes to the house of the new kidnapped victim.

Once they arrive there, they find two agents from the Missing persons unit of the FBI talking with the distraught mother.

"Hi Mike," says Eric, greeting the other FBI agent in the scene, "what can you tell us?"

He points to the sobbing woman on the couch, "Alisson Watts, divorced, 38, has full custody of her only daughter, Angela Watts, age ten. Her mother says her daughter was an exemplary child, good grades, good behavior, etc. They have no enemies to speak of, the ex-husband got married again and has another family in Los Angeles."

"Why did she report her daughter missing before the twenty four hours deadline?" asks Anita, looking at the mother receiving a glass of water of one of her neighbors.

Mike shakes his head, "she received a phone call from the school, asking why Angela did not show up for her final math test. Mrs. Watts thought it strange as her daughter had been studying non-stop for three days in order to prepare for that. Besides, there was a broadcast on the TV about the body found by the river, which is approximately ten miles south from here. When she saw the picture, she freaked out." He gives a picture of Angela Watts to Anita, who shows it to Joy who is standing right behind her.

"She could be the twin sister of the other victim," says Joy.

Mike nods, "let's hope we have more luck with this one," he turns to Eric, "wanna take over the interrogation?" Eric nods, and approaches the distraught mother.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

They didn't have luck with Angela. The deadline came and was gone before they had a solid lead on who the psychotic bastard was.

Once they had a lead, they stormed the house of local farm veterinary assistant, and found a veritable house of horrors.

They shot him down before he made another slice on Angela's body. The team approaches the child and verifies that they were too late. She was already dead, and he had already sliced the skin from her legs off.

It was a very silent team that drove back to Los Angeles the following morning.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Dimitri Korcevic studied his team silently working on their reports on the case from Monterrey County. He could sense that the case had deeply disturbed them, but all cases that involved children were hard ones to swallow.

Children should be protected, cared for, not victims of the acts of a madman who believed that they were impure because he couldn't save their souls from his own sick mind, and killed for that.

They had worked diligently without the usual banter until nightfall, and he walks out of his office and orders them home.

"Good job agents, now go home, we have more work to do tomorrow."

No one moves. Actually, they barely acknowledge that he had spoken.

"Go home, people, I want you rested for tomorrow."

Leo stands up, "I don't want to go home."

All the other agents look at him, and see how distraught he is.

"I want to get drunk," and he goes to his lower drawer and grabs a bottle of scotch from it, and two glasses, and walks to Dimitri and gives him a glass.

"You do know that you are in a Federal Building, and you shouldn't have booze in your drawer," says Dimitri, in a paternal voice, "I should even report you for having it, at all."

Leo looks at Dimitri with sad eyes, "shut up and drink with me, boss, being drunk alone is depressive."

He pours scotch in both glasses and turns to the other agents, who are looking sadly at Leo, "I want to propose a toast."

"A toast?" asks Lorraine, concerned about the mental workings of the young computer tech.

"Yep," he looks at Eric and Norman, who stand up and grab the bottle from Leo's shaking hands and pour scotch in their own coffee cups. Joy looks at the other two girls, stand up and offers her coffee cup, and Norm pours two fingers of scotch on it. Anita and Lorraine approach them and also get some scotch in their cups.

They stand in a small circle, and stay in silence for a moment.

Leo tries to continue, "I…" he lowers his head, and sniffles the tears that insist to gather in his eyes, "I want to toast to the Devil," the agents look at him, and he continues, "so may the horny beast have a hell of a party poking the insides and tormenting that bastard, who…" he starts crying, "and I want him to suffer, a lot, burning his flesh and having his skin torn from his flesh as he did to those little girls, and…" he starts sobbing.

The men lower their heads to their chest, feeling the same helplessness from before. They stopped the bastard, and killed him before he made more victims, but they were too late for little Angela. The hysterical crying of the mother once told of the death of her only child would haunt them forever.

The women all have tears in their eyes, and Anita gives her cup to Joy and gathers young Leo in her arms, and he cries on her shoulder, repeating "she was a baby, she was only a baby."

They stay in silence for a moment, only Leo's crying sounding in the room.

Joy wipes her tears, and raises her cup, "may he burn in the burning fires of hell."

The other agents raise their scotch, and salute, "may he burn in the burning fires of hell."

And they drink.

* * *

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	12. Bear skin and fireplaces

_**Bear skin and fireplaces  
**_**_Present day_**

"Thanks to their incompetence, my daughter is dead today," says Mrs. Watts. "They had the clues that lead to the suspect right from the beginning, but only after the bastard killed my daughter they moved into his hideout."

"Watch your language, Mrs. Watts," warns one of the senior agents on the committee.

"I'm sorry, sir, but my blood still boils even after all these years whenever I think on them," she looks with hatred towards Joy.

"Thanks for your testimony, you may take your seat," she stands up and walks down to her chair, but first she stops before the NCIS group and looks down at Joy, who is looking impassively at her, "you should have died with them, like the dogs that you are."

Gibbs stands up ready to give that woman a piece of his mind, but former AD Klein intervenes, "you are wrong Mrs. Watts," she looks at the former AD, "forensic evidence later on proved that your daughter was already dead once the BAU team was called into the case," he shakes his head, and looks with pity to his former agent, "there was nothing they could have done to change the outcome of things."

She looks with hatred at him, then at Joy, and leaves the room walking noisily to the door.

"Order, Order," says AD Wiltmann.

The agents go back to their assigned seats, and Gibbs exchange a silent thank you with AD Klein, who nods and points to Joy, silently asking, _how is she doing?_

Gibbs looks at his agent, and sees the tense shoulders and the impenetrable mask on her face, classic signs that she is bottling everything up. He shakes his head sadly, _not good._ He sighs. _Not good at all._

"We would like to call…"

"We would like to call…"

"We would like to call…"

"We would like to call…"

The hearing was gruesome, and the NCIS team could see how heartbreaking it has been for Joy. She didn't move or express any outward sign of distress during the testimony of several fellow agents and other victims' relatives who had less than glowing reports on the activities of the BAU. They bashed and belittled the team, accusing Eric of being childish and immature, Leo of being a technological criminal, Dimitri of being too complacentat his agents breaking the rules, the list went on.

McGee was very concerned about Joy, as he could feel how she would squeeze his hand whenever something particularly cruel or hurtful was said about her former team. He put his other hand over hers, and squeezed back, but he had no response from her, as she was looking fixedly at the latest former FBI colleague dashing the image of her former team.

They finally called the hearing off at six pm, and it was a very tired group that moved out of the Hoover building. Gibbs' team walked as a tight group, protecting Joy from the stares of the agents who were looking at her as a stranger or poisonous weed that must be cut and crushed out of their midst.

Tony and Ziva left together, after offering to go with them to the townhouse, but Hope just studied her sister for a moment before ordering them home.

"She won't be open to company tonight, go home."

Joy was like a silent doll, completely mute and with downcast eyes. Hope and Faith look at each other and both hug their sister, in a group hug as they used to do when they were younger and needed to find comfort in each other.

Faith takes a step back and studies her younger sister, and lifts her face so she can study her eyes. Deep despair can be seen in them, and it breaks her heart.

"Are you sure that you don't want us to come and hang out with you?" Joy shakes her head saying silently no, and hugs again her oldest sister and stay like that for a moment.

"You will call us if you need us. Anything, ok?" Joy nods silently.

They step apart, Hope hugs Joy and the two sisters walk away.

Joy watches them until they disappear from view, and Gibbs puts his hand on her shoulder, "Come on, your father is waiting for us."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Maggie was deeply sorry that she hadn't been able to fly to DC yet, to support her daughter during the hearings, as the problems she had been facing at the Air Force base in Nevada hadn't been solved yet.

"Meaning of life stuff, dear, you know how it is," she said the last time she spoke to Joy on the phone, but she sent something to Joy that brought a smile in her face once she saw it.

Her mother sent her the bear skin that McGee had given her. It had been hanging on her office wall since she had received as a gift, as a memento of Joy's triumph over that bastard Jarod. Now it had a privileged position on the floor before the fireplace in the townhouse.

Gibbs enters the townhouse and is greeted warmly by Joseph, who looks worriedly at his daughter who rushes into his arms and hugs him fiercely.

He looks up from the trembling woman in his arms, and silently questions the two NCIS agents.

McGee shakes his head, and takes his coat off and asks for Gibbs' coat, and hangs itin the small wardrobe by the door.

"It was bad," he mutters, "really bad."

"You have anything to drink here?" asks Gibbs, studying the living room with its roaring fireplace.

Joseph looks down at his daughter, who takes a step back and walks towards the fireplace, and stretches her hands, trying to warm them up by the fire.

He frowns, "we have some Italian and Spanish wine, but it is mostly table wine, nothing fancy."

Gibbs studies his agent, standing by the fire, looking at it with a lost air. McGee walks up behind her and seems unsure of what to do, if he should hug her or not, as she doesn't even acknowledge his presence.

Gibbs looks at Joseph, "I'm more a bourbon type of guy," he walks to the wardrobe and grabs his coat, "get your coat, I have a bottle in my basement."

Joseph looks at the two youngsters silently standing by the fireplace, "are you sure that's the right call?"

Gibbs looks at McGee, who looks back at him and nods, "she needs to sort out a lot of things in her head, and she won't grieve if we are around."

Joseph still vacillates for a moment, then gets his thick winter overcoat, "I'm going out with Gibbs, peanut," he doesn't hear an answer, but McGee nods at him.

The two men walk out of the house, and the door is locked silently behind them.

They stay in silence for a moment, only the eventual crackling of wood burning breaking the stillness of the room.

McGee turns towards Joy's back and silently approach her. He studies her form, and closes his eyes trying to imagine the pain she must have been feeling. He tries to imagine if the same thing had happened with him, with his team in NCIS, if he had been the only survivor on a terrible case, and his dead colleagues were subjected to the scorn and slander that the BAU, even dead, had been facing since Jarod's case.

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," says Joy in a small voice.

"What?"

"You've been through a lot today, you don't have to babysit me tonight," she turns around and looks at him with sad eyes, "I'm a big girl, I won't do anything worthy of notice tonight."

He studies her face, and the deep sadness on it.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says softly.

She lowers her head, and he can see tears finally rolling down her face. He leans down and brings her to his chest, and she silently cries on his shoulder, and her arms fold around his chest, and they stay like that for some minutes. He can feel the light shaking of her body, whenever a new wave of despair came and her tears flowed fresh again.

As soon as he feels that her tears slowed down, he leans back and touches her forehead with his lips, deposing a tender kiss there. He takes a step back and studies her face. He sees something that it has been a while since he has seen it in her face.

"Tim, I…" he leans down and kisses her.

Their lips softly mesh, and slowly have a taste of each other, trying to get used to the feeling of being together again. McGee moves his body closer to hers and with his right arm brings her body to lean on his, at the same time that his other hand holds her by the neck and tilts her head to the side, to give him better access for his attack.

She moans, and he takes that as a permission to dive in. He opens his mouth and uses his tongue, silently demanding access. She grants it to him, and starts pouring all his feelings into that kiss.

She moans and trembles, and he stops and touches her forehead with his.

"Tim, I…"

"Are you sure?" he asks, and she looks at him with tears in her eyes, "please don't play with me with this, are you sure?" he asks again, his voice cracking.

She bites her lower lip, and looks at him with liquid eyes, and nods. He sighs and molds her body against his, and lowers his mouth to her neck to drop a kiss against her weak spot, and murmurs against her ear, "I missed you."

She sobs.

He runs his hands over her arms and slowly lowers her on the bear skin on floor.

There was no rush, no fireworks or angels singing on the background. But McGee felt his eyes fill with tears and his heart felt like it would burst with joy as he held the woman he loved in his arms for the first time in so many weeks.

After a few uncomfortable moments, when he had to remind her he was the one who held her in his arms, they found their natural rhythm and soon they found their release on top of the bear skin, softly caressing their bare bodies.

"Tim, I…"

"I know, Joy." He kisses her again, gently and stands up and grabs several of the many blankets they usually leave over the sofas, and covers her body with his and with the blankets.

"I know."

They fall asleep in a nest of blankets by the fireplace, and that's how Joseph and Gibbs find them the following morning.

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	13. The two Bs stand for Bourbon and boat

**_The two Bs stand for Bourbon and boat_**_  
_**_Present day_**

Gibbs and Joseph leave the townhouse and drive to Gibbs' place in silence. Once inside, Gibbs guides Joy's father to his basement, where he goes straight to his tool cabinet and gets a bottle of bourbon. He turns upside down two small glass jars full of screws and pours two fingers of the drink, and turns to offer the beverage to Joseph, and sees him sliding his hand reverently over the body of the boat.

"No power tools?"

Gibbs smirks, "nope," he offers the drink to Joseph who gladly gets the bourbon and sips.

Both sit on wooden stools and sip their drinks silently, staring at the boat. It is a comfortable silence, as both men had a lot in their minds and they did not mind staying in silence while they organized their thoughts.

Gibbs turns to the reverend and studies him, looking at the boat with a contemplative expression on his face. With the exception of Ducky, Gibbs had very people he could call friends, but since he met the reverend they slowly slid into an easy camaraderie, as the other man transmitted a serenity and wisdom that Gibbs had rarely seen in other people their ages.

Joseph glances at Gibbs and smiles softly, "What's on your mind, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs lifts the bourbon bottle, offering more of the beverage to Joseph, who gladly accepts it, "you may call me Gibbs, or Jethro," Joseph looks at him, "my friends call me Jethro."

Joseph smiles, "So, Jethro…"

"Why does Hope act like a clown whenever Joy is around? I've seen her working as an Agent, she is totally focused and serious once her mind is on track, but whenever Joy gets in the picture she uses whatever means possible to …"

"To make Joy laugh?" completes Joseph. Gibbs looks at him and nods.

"She used you as the butt of one of her jokes, didn't she?" Gibbs nods again.

Joseph stands and leaves his glass of bourbon in the counter, and walks around the boat, standing before it and leaning down so he can be eyelevel with the structure.

"I wish I could say that it is fraternal love, but I would be lying."

He stands up, and looks at Gibbs.

"It is just deep unbridled guilt."

Gibbs stares at Joseph, silently asking him to continue. Joseph slides his hand over the smooth wood, appreciating the patient craftsmanship in it.  
"Maggie told you about Gordon's case?" He glances briefly to Gibbs, and keeps on studying the boat.

"Hope hated Joy on sight," Joseph shakes his head, remembering the two young women as children.

"Hope and Grace had been living with us for two years when we got Joy's custody, and she resented deeply having someone her own age in the house. Joy's silence and muteness didn't help, so she did her utmost to ensure that Joy would have a miserable existence in school."

"She bullied, cursed and pushed Joy, but Joy never responded to her aggression, only silently took whatever she threw at her."

He looks at Gibbs, and leans against the tool bench, and keeps talking, "Joy didn't speak at that time, but man," he looks at Gibbs, "she could smile, and her laughter was the purest sound I had ever heard until then."

"That summer it was the first that Johnny came home from boot camp, and when he arrived, he simply connected with Joy. I believe he spent more time with her than with us."

Joseph sighs, "Everything changed once Gordon's kid was kidnapped, and the FBI moved into town."

"First we had our small town invaded by FBI, and the kids became terrified as they knew that up until then, none of the missing kids had been found. Then Joy and Hope were taken…"

"That psychopath, he enjoyed," he looks at Gibbs, "playing with his food, if you get my meaning."

"His favorite tool of torture was lit cigarettes. He would burn the children until they cried, and then beat them for making noise."

Joseph looks at Gibbs, with a haunted expression on his eyes, "once they were in captivity, Joy somehow immediately figured out his game, and managed to turn his attention towards herself, not letting him inflict any damage on Hope's skin."

"Once Hope was ready to talk to us about that period, she mentioned that Joy screamed and cursed and bit him until he would lose his cool and hit her, and whenever he burnt her she would simply stay quiet."

"Hope would scream herself hoarse at him, but he soon figured out that he could torture her without marring her skin, he only had to hurt Joy."  
"Joy later on helped Hope and the other kids find a way to run away, despite her own wounds, and the FBI found them right in the middle of their escape."

"Joy spent weeks in the hospital due to the burns, and Hope was crushed by an unmitigated guilt, as many of the burns now on Joy's skin were supposed to have been done on her own skin."

"Joy started speaking at that time, during her recovery time, and once asked why she took Hope's place in the punishment, she simply said that 'the innocent should not bear the marks of evil'. She explained that she had already been marked, she wasn't an innocent anymore, and she had already been touched by evil, and two or three more scars wouldn't make a difference."

"She was ten, eleven years old, and saw herself as branded by evil."

"You helped her to start talking," says Gibbs, and is surprised with Joseph shaking his head in the negative.

"I wish I could take the credit, but I didn't do it," he looks at Gibbs, "if I could be thankful for one person for helping Joy to talk, it would be Jason Gideon."

"He connected with her right from the beginning, and was able to communicate with her even without words. Once she was kidnapped, he worked non-stop to ensure her safe return home," Joseph rubs his face tiredly, "and once she was in the hospital, he visited her constantly to check on her progress. She told him that she knew what he did was important, because he hunted monsters, and she wanted him to be her teacher," Joseph smiles at Gibbs, "she told him that she wanted to stop monsters from hurting people as they had hurt her."

"He made a deal with her: they would keep in touch, and she would grow up and see the world. If, after she saw the world, she still wished to learn how to hunt monsters, he would be her mentor."

"Ten years later, as soon as she graduated, she was working with him in the BAU."

"And Hope?"

"Hope changed, she realized that the mute sibling wasn't as bad as she had imagined before, and turned into her greatest defender. She kept trying to find things to make Joy laugh, and considering that Joy had led a very sheltered life, the simplest things fascinated her. She didn't understand how snow could be found inside snow balls, and would spend hours staring at them, trying to figure out why the small flakes didn't melt. Hope started to give her different snowballs, and any other thing that seemed to catch Joy's attention."

Joseph becomes serious again, "I thank God for this, as Hope along with Johnny were essential to ensure Joy's recovery the first time she was kidnapped by Jarod."

"I don't think she would have made it if it wasn't for them," he gets his bourbon glass and sips it again, "you see, when we went to the hospital to see her that first time, I didn't recognize my daughter. It was only a pale bag of skin and bones, that was barely alive, being kept breathing with the aid of machines. That night I raved and shouted at the heavens, asking why that was happening to her, didn't she suffer enough?"

"I received no answer that night."

"They told us to say our goodbyes, as the chances of her surviving the infection, the bullet wound and the torture was almost zero. We called all the family in and just kept vigil."

He smiled at Gibbs, "but she lingered until morning. And the following morning, and then another week. Every time the doctors give her a death sentence, she would surprise them and still hold on to the smallest chance of survival."

Joseph stops and stays in silence for a moment, and Gibbs sees that he's deeply perturbed about something, but simply waits until he is ready to continue. Joseph takes a deep breath, and wipes a tear on his face, "when we heard that…" he chokes, but continues, "that Eric had lost it and killed the team, I understood why God kept Joy in the hospital. Because I knew, I simply knew that my daughter would either die by his hand, or be forced to kill her best friend and partner in order to save her own life and the life of her teammates. And that would have destroyed her."

Joseph moves the wooden stool and sits before Gibbs, and looks him in the eye. "I've killed men in combat, I've worked black ops and seen terrible things, as well as I am sure you did too. But no father could wish this situation to his own daughter."

He sighs, "after the team died, she slowly started to get better, and one week later she woke up from coma. We still waited one week before telling her what happened, as she still spent most of her time sleeping, and she was very weak." He lowers his head, "and still, I was a coward."

"Why?" asks Gibbs softly.

"Because I wasn't strong enough to face her and tell her what had happened," says Joseph guiltily, "I gave the responsibility to Johnny. He was the one there to tell her and to hold her as her soul cracked into tiny little pieces."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

Joseph smiles, "because you were also part of her healing process." Gibbs looks confused at Joseph, who continues, "you see, for a while, she was barely existing, she spent months moping around and regaining her health and strength in Montana, but that fire, that essential flame that defined her was gone. We gathered the family in a meeting, and we studied all possibilities, the FBI was a no go, as they had already made clear that they would burn her in a witch-hunt if she ever got near them again, so we were looking for alternatives. Finally Temperance, God bless her heart, suggested any other Federal Agency, after all, the FBI wasn't the only investigative service in the country needing profilers. We asked around, and talked with some people and soon Joy was an NCIS agent."

"She started working in the LA office, but she wasn't really into the job. Too many ghosts and memories haunted her in that was only after she received new orders to move to DC that I finally saw some enthusiasm again."

"One week after she started working in your team, I knew we had done the right thing: she was profiling again, she was working with a team that seemed to be a tight knit family unit like the one she had back in LA, so for the first time that year we could breathe relieved."

Joseph raises his bourbon, and salutes, "for that, I thank you, Jethro. Thank you for accepting my daughter in the team, for forcing her to work to the best of her abilities again."

They touch their drinks, and sip silently their bourbon.

"Have you named her yet?"

"How do you know it is a she?"

Joseph smiles, and looks at the boat in the basement, "when men talk about hurricanes and boats, they always name them after women."

Both men exchange a smile, and stay in silence.

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	14. The beginning of the end

_**The beginning of the end**_

_**Los Angeles  
Two years ago**_

"We have a new case," says Dimitri at the beginning of the morning meeting.

He hands out folders to each agent, and they start ruffling through the pages, "there are four women missing," he signals to Leo, who puts a map from the West Coast on the plasma, with red dots shining on it, "two in California, one in Arizona, one in Nevada, all women, aged between 25 to 43, two divorced, one single, one widow."

"They lived alone, led a solitary life, and have not been reported missing until several days, or in some cases, weeks after they apparently vanished without a trace."

"No one noticed they were missing?" Lorraine is frowning at the folder, as they don't have much to start with.

"Vic one was a professional blogger, she worked from home, her neighbors wouldn't see for her days."

"Vic two was a travel photographer, she was scheduled to start a round trip in Europe with some friends, but she never showed up."

"According to the investigation report, her friends just assumed that she had decided to go somewhere else, she had done that before," says Anita, checking the report.

"Vic three was a dog breeder, she owned a small ranch where she bred pureblood Weimaraner dogs, she failed to attend one of the competitions, for which she had registered months before, and a colleague went to visit her ranch in Arizona and found the dogs completely alone, undernourished, others already dead, but no sign of our victim," Dimitri points to the picture of the ghostlike ranch. It seemed like she had just went out for a cup of coffee, everything was in its place, just the owner of the house was missing from the picture.

"Evidence and the rate of the abandonment of the dogs indicate that she had disappeared at least two months before it was noticed," says Joy reading from the report in her hands.

"Vic four was the widow, she had recently lost her husband in a car accident and decided to take a sabbatical in the family property in North California. She cut contact with all friends she made during her married life, and went to grieve for a while." Dimitri signs to Leo, who shows another ghostlike house, "no sign of forced entry, nothing out of the ordinary reported, she was simply gone."

Norm sees something in the report that makes him sit straighter, "these are cold cases, vic one has been missing for more than one year, vic two three years, vic three six months and…" he looks at the other reports, "the other one was missing for two years, why are we being given these cases just now?"

Dimitri stands up and goes towards the plasma and turns and looks at his agents. They all become silent and tense, as they feel that he's going to drop a bomb on them.

"We are being given this case now because they were found." He looks at Leo, who sighs and puts another picture on the plasma.

You could hear a pin drop as the agents became utterly silent, looking at the picture on the plasma.

The agents all had horrified expressions on their faces, which slowly changed into determination to catch that bastard.

"We have a serial killer on our hands. Grab your things, you are leaving for Arizona immediately."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Eric was nervously tapping his nails on the steering wheel while driving the rental they got once they landed in Phoenix, Arizona.

Anita was silently reading the map, trying to navigate them towards their destination. She was siting shotgun, while Joy and Norman were sitting on the backseat rereading the files of the preliminary investigation.

"You have to enter the next exit for freeway 17, going north until exit for highway 74. Once on Carefree highway a patrol car will guide us to the crime scene."

"Lorraine will be handling the press from Phoenix, and Dimitri will be working together with the cops from Phoenix trying to ensure all evidence is sent to be processed by our lab in LA," says Joy from the back seat, as she rereads the files.

"They found six bodies, but they were able to identify only four. Any idea who will we be talking to once we arrive in Carefree?" asks Norman, without looking up from his files.

"A sheriff named Benjamin Horovitz, he is the sheriff of Anthem, AZ, and he was one of the first on the scene along with his LEOs. Kor spoke to him briefly on the phone, and he guaranteed that his men are preserving the scene, minus corpses, for us to investigate," says Joy.

"We will also be speaking to a distant relative of the house owner, Rose Arlington, who was the one who found the corpses. She finally received the ok from the lawyers to execute her cousin's estate, as she has been missing for more than three years," says Anita, "imagine her surprise once she arrived on one of her cousin's properties, which was abandoned for at least four years, and found six bodies hanging from the ceiling beams in the basement."

"Any chance her cousin is one of the unidentified corpses?" says Joy.

"Right now, everything is possible," says Norman.

Eric just keeps driving in silence.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Leo worked frantically back in LA trying to find a trace, a pattern linking the victims in the basement in Arizona. So far, the only thing they had in common was that they were women and they were dead. They lived in different states, attended different churches, and had different jobs. No pattern at all, just that they were dead.

He was tired, he rubbed his eyes for a moment, and decided to expand the search to all fifty states. He stood up and went to the bathroom, leaving the search running on his screen.

When he came back and moved the mouse, turning off his screen saver, he gulped his scalding coffee and burned himself.

He immediately started dialling Dimitri.

"Kor, you are not going to believe it."

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	15. Questions and Answers

**_Questions and Answers_**

**_FBI Internal Affairs Audience  
__Present day_**

"We would like to call to testify former FBI agent Joy Buchanan," says AD Wiltman.

Joy squeezed Tim's hand and stood up, going to the stand. The team silently gave her support as she took the stand and gave her oath.

"State your name and position."

"Joy Buchanan, I was a profiler and FBI agent for the Los Angeles Behavioral Analysis Unit until late summer 2007."

"Agent Buchanan, you are currently working for NCIS's Major Case Response Team located in Washington DC, is that correct?"

"That is correct."

"What prompted your transfer from the FBI to NCIS?"

"At the end of Jarod Garnett's case, I was sent on a very lengthy medical leave. There were very few assurances that I would one day return to be a full time agent for the FBI again, due to physical and psychological damage incurred during that case. I was given the options to either quit or retire no possibility of reinstatement."

"So you admit that you were damaged by your stay in captivity by Garnett," says AD Daniel Brass, who has been acting as prosecutor in the hearing.

Joy turns to AD Brass, and coldly answers, "I was shot in the chest by a .22'' magnum revolver. The bullet fractured a rib, ricocheted to the left and punctured the pleural lining of my left lung, finally exiting in my back, dangerously close to my spinal cord. So, the answer to your question is yes, I was damaged."

The five senior agents fidgeted a little as they heard the extent of her injuries. Reading a report differs substantially from actually hearing it.

AD Wiltman has the next question, "tell us about the Garnett case."

Joy leans back in the seat, and starts reciting her testimony.

"We were called in once one of Garnett's hideouts was found by chance in Arizona. As soon as we began to investigate further into the case, we realized that those six bodies weren't the only ones by the unsub, and we found a pattern that extended for more than ten years, covering four different states."

"What was the M.O. of the perpetrator of these crimes?"

Joy glances briefly at the team, sees them silently supporting her, and continues, "he would initially contact them under cover of legitimacy, either by his own real state company interests or through a competitor's case. He was looking specifically for single women, with no relatives," she sighs, "women that no one would miss in the long run. He contacted them regarding their real estate, organized the selling or buying of it, and then waited several years until he deemed it was time to snatch them. He was a patient man, he waited years in some cases, he enjoyed watching and observing his prey, he learnt everything about them, their fears, their desires, and their needs."

"He wasn't picky; he didn't restrain himself to only one racial profile, he took Asians, white, black, even one half Native American victim."

"What was your relationship with Jarod Gartner?"

"I had no relationship with him, I was one of his victims."

"But you did start a connection with him, didn't you, agent Buchanan? According to one of the survivors' statements, once you found yourself in captivity you immediately started a rapport with him, turning his attention towards you and the other agent, Eric Gomez?"

"We had profiled him. We theorized that he wanted power and obedience at all costs. Forensic evidence showed a discrepancy between the time he snatched his victims and their demise. Some of them lasted longer, and were better treated than others. We found evidence of abuse in both groups. The difference was that there were no defensive wounds on the corpses of the first group. Those who submitted to his desires, they had a faint chance of surviving longer, or until his interest in them waned and he left them to their own devices."

"So he did not kill his victims."

"No, he did."

"But you just said that he left them."

"Once he was done with them, he would hang them on hooks from the ceiling beamsin the basements of his hideouts, and just leave the remaining victims who were still alive to die either from thirst or hunger."

AD Brass looks at his notes, and changes topics, "Did you initiate sexual contact with the suspect?"

There is a deep silence on the room.

"I don't understand your question."

"Did you or did you not have sexual relations with the suspect?"

"I don't see the relevance of that for the present hearing."

"I just want to see how close you were to him."

Joy stays silent, just looking at the AD. He continues his line of questioning.

"Did he or did he not use the carvings on your back as an element of his psychosis? As soon as he saw those marks, he ordered you to explain the origins of it, and once you explained, he integrated the elements you told him into his dominant – subservient relationship with the victims," AD Brass approaches Joy's seat, and studies the agent cunningly, "and then he ordered total obedience whenever he wanted his needs satisfied."

"It was never about sex. It was always rape."

"What about your relationship with Eric Gomez? Was it about rape as well?"

She stares at the AD. He keeps pushing.

"Did you not make a deal with Garnett so that Agent Gomez would be the one who you would have intercourse with, not only with you but with the other victims as well, one of them only fifteen years old?"

Joy stays in silence and remembers.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

_**Undisclosed location**_  
_**Two years ago**_

The moaning on the bed was only covered by the hoarse screams of the chained man, who thrashed his body against the chains that held him against the wall on the opposite side of the basement.

"You bastard, don't hurt her."

"Don't hurt her."

"I'll do anything, but don't hurt her."

He cried and supported his head against his arms tired arms, his wrists were a bloody mess, as he fought against the chains.

"Please, I'll do anything, anything at all, but don't hurt her."

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	16. Spider and the fly

_**Spider and the Fly**_

_**Los Angeles  
Two years ago  
one month into the investigation – one week before the kidnapping**_

_Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly,  
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;  
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,  
And I've a many curious things to show when you are there."  
Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "to ask me is in vain,  
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." _

_**The Spider and the Fly – Mary Howitt**_

"You're still here?"

Joy looks up from the autopsy reports she's rereading, for the sixth time, but they didn't make sense the first time she read them, and the following readings didn't change the words or the cruel reality they represented. She sees Dimitri standing by her table, and he looks as tired as she feels.

"I could ask you the same thing, Kor."

"I've been going through the latest report by Eric and Norman, their new preliminary profile on this bastard."

Joy studies her supervisor, and sees that after four weeks hunting this killer, the burden of responsibility was finally becoming unbearable on Korcevic. After the initial basement, they identified all the victims there and were overwhelmed with evidence, which unfortunately did not help their investigation in any way.

The press had the FBI team over a barrel, especially after they found a second basement, with six other victims, in California. The oldest victim in that basement had been missing for twelve years; the newest victim had been missing for seven years.

They did a search according to the victims' profiles, and they found at least twenty more missing women that fit on the victimology only in the three state area of Nevada, Arizona and California, spanning at least ten years.

Their biggest problem so far is that there was a huge interval between each kidnapping. According to the forensic reports, after he kidnapped the women, he would keep them alive for at least two years, or more, and later on kidnap another woman and kill the previous one.

There was no sign of forced entry or violence in any of the houses of the victims, according to the investigation done at the time of their disappearance, and most of them were considered missing voluntarily, as all of them led a very reclusive life.

"What did their report say?"

Korcevic lifts his eyes from his hands, at which he was staring with a lost air on his face. "Uhm?"

"The report?" Joy insists.

Korcevic sighs, "he's a player, and he enjoys games." Dimitri gets a chair and sits close to Joy, who sits straighter in her chair.

"May I?" Dimitri points to the autopsy reports. Joy silently hands them to him.

"Look at this," he points to a line in the autopsy report, "according to this, he only killed this victim months after he kidnapped his next. He would keep the previous one, as a warning, and a showcase of how she would be treated if she obeyed. If she was a good girl, she would get to live, for some time, if not, she would be killed."

"He would only kill the previous one if and when he could teach a lesson to the one still living," says Joy, following his conjectures.

"Basically, he tortured and programmed them to obey him, if they are good girls, they get to survive and see another day, if not…"

"He wouldn't hesitate to kill them, and search for someone more malleable to his wishes."

"That's why none of them tried to escape. Whoever tried to escape, was summarily executed."

"Yes," says Dimitri, and looks around the bullpen, and sees Leo with a coffee cup in one of his hands, looking dead on his feet, looking blearily at the screen of his laptop, coming back from a bathroom break.

"Nobody obeys my orders anymore? I thought I sent him home hours ago."

Joy shakes her head, "everyone wants to catch this bastard, he's been working non-stop since the beginning trying to find a pattern, a link between all of the victims."

"Any luck?"

"None so far."

They stay in silence, each one with their own troubled thoughts.

"Do you think they are still alive?"

"Who?"

"Whoever he has with him right now."

"If they submit to his wishes, some of them might be." Dimitri sighs, "but there's no way to know which ones acceded to his wishes and which rebelled. Those who rebelled were doomed from the beginning."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"I have a bad feeling about this case," says Anita.

"You always have a bad feeling about our cases, Anita," says Lorraine, not looking up from her papers.

"No, but I'm serious this time," Joy looks up from her report, and Anita turns to her, and keeps talking, "I had a dream."

"You want to spook us because you had a nightmare about the case, please Anita," says Lorraine irritated, "we are all having trouble sleeping since this case started. You are not the only one affected by it. Just look at Leo and Norm, both are dead on their feet, not having had a full night sleep for days. Even Eric stopped with his jokes."

"No, but I'm serious." Joy keeps studying Anita, who is staring at her.

"My mama used to say that I had a gift, that sometimes La Virgen Maria would show me things, to protect me."

"Oh, please." Lorraine doesn't believe this spiritual bullshit, but Anita sees that Joy is paying attention to her without any mockery in her face.

"What did you see?" says Joy, dead serious.

Anita closes her eyes, "I saw blood, lots of blood, pooling on the floor. I couldn't see where it came from, but I knew that for the amount, it must mean that whoever was bleeding was already dead."

She opens her eyes, "I also saw you, Joy, screaming. It was a heartbreaking scream, as if your very soul had been torn from your body, and it filled the hallways and echoed far away."

"What hallways?" Joy wants to know. Lorraine just rolls her eyes at the two women.

"Here, our floor hallway, and there is more," she makes another pause, and even Lorraine looks at them two, if not believing in it, at least listening to the story, "there was blood splattered on the glass walls. As if someone had been shot close to it and the drops spread over the glass."

"Thanks for nothing, Anita, now I have new images for my nightmares," Lorraine stands up, "I'm going for another coffee."

Joy keeps looking at Anita, who is very shaken by her dream.

"Promise you will take care out there, Joy."

A moment of silence, and then, "I will."

Anita closes her folder, and gets ready to leave. Once she's done, she sees that Joy hasn't moved from her position, and she now has a frown on her forehead.

"Joy?"

"Anita."

"What's wrong?"

Joy opens her mouth, as if she's going to speak, but thinks again. She looks up at Anita, stands up and approaches her.

"Anita," says Joy, softly.

"Uhm."

"I had the same dream."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"I think I found something," says Leo, in the next morning meeting.

The team is sitting in their meeting room in LA, during their weekly meeting to review the findings of the case.

"Talk to me man," says Eric, "any news is good news right now."

"Five of our victims sold their properties through Garnett Real Estate Properties years before their kidnapping, all of them located in California."

"So what, we have 12 victims, what about the other seven?" Eric is looking at the graphics Leo made, but he's not convinced.

"They had a brief contact with his firm, either by phone or by a visit of one of Garnett's representatives, at least one to three years prior to each kidnapping."

"Coincidence? A lot of people have their properties sold by Garnett Real Estate, it is a really famous agency here in the greater LA area," says Lorraine.

"I don't believe in coincidences," says Norman.

"Why did nobody pick that up before?"

"Probably because they had been contacted years before the actual disappearing, and the trail was dead cold when I went after it."

"It is worth at least a visit to Mr. Garnett. Joy, Eric, you go. Norm, Lorraine, Anita I want you to do a complete background check on Jarod Garnett, his associates and employees, and try to find any link with our victims. Show their pictures to people who knew the victim, neighbors both of the victim and of hideouts, let's see if we can place him at anywhere in the vicinity of the crime scenes."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Nice crib," says Eric as soon as he gets out of the car towards Jarod Garnett's main property in Orange County.

"What did you expect, he makes in one month more than what you make in one year," says Joy, smirking.

They ring the bell.

A plump Spanish looking woman opens the door, "Hello?"

"We're looking for Mr. Garnett, is he in?"

"Senor Garnett is not receiving," she said in heavily accented English.

"Senora, nosotros somos FBI, puede llamar senor Garnet?" '_Ma'am, we´re FBI, can you call Mr. Garnett,'_ says Eric, and the woman gets huge eyes and closes the door and goes back inside.

Joy looks through the glass on the door and sees the lady talking to a tall man, with a very distinct air, moving her hands agitatedly in the air. He looks towards her and Joy feels a breeze on her neck, which gives her goose bumps. She takes a step back, and few seconds later the door is open again.

"May I help you?" the stranger says.

"We're looking for Mr. Jarod Garnett," says Eric, annoyed at having to wait outside.

The stranger gives a smile, his eyes move from Eric to Joy and back to Eric, and his smile gets even bigger, "so I believe you found him."

He stretches his hand towards Eric, "I'm Jarod Gartnett."

The two men shake hands. He turns towards Joy, and when they shake hands Joy feels a smell she hasn't felt for a long, long time. A stink that makes her feel almost sick, eager to vomit.

"Please come in."

Eric looks at Joy, and sees just an impenetrable mask on her face, gives her the way, she enters the house, and he follows her in.

Jarods closes the door after the agents.

* * *

Reviews are food for the soul.

a/n: We are going on a very dark trip now, guys. Be prepared.


	17. Cross examination

_**Cross-examination**_

_**FBI Internal Affairs Audience**  
__**Present day**_

"Have you heard my question, agent Buchanan?" says AD Brass.

Joy is abruptly taken out of her walk down memory lane, and looks confused at the AD, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear your question."

"Were you in a relationship with Agent Eric Gomez?" he repeats himself.

"We were friends," she says, and briefly glances at McGee and the team. Gibbs has his arms folded over his chest and is studying her, silently demanding of her to keep giving her side of the story.

"Let me reformulate the question, were you in a sexual relationship with Agent Eric Gomez?"

She licks her dried lips, and says softly, "No."

"Then why did you insist to have Eric as your sexual partner during the captivity period? Were the rapes by Garnett not enough, you had to submit both you and the other living victims to the ignominy of being raped by someone you knew?"

"Objection," says former AD Klein, standing up.

"This is not a courthouse, you can't object to anything here, AD Klein." Says AD Brass, and turns to the agent he's having the satisfaction of grilling, but the former AD is not done.

"Then do not act as if you are jury and executioner, you have no idea what they had go through at Garnett's hands."

"And do you?" says AD Wiltman, turning to the former AD, "is that the reason why, after the team was murdered by Agent Gomez's hands, who was reinstated back into service by your orders, that you suddenly retired?"

Former AD Klein looks at Joy, and shakes his head, "I allowed Agent Gomez's reinstatement, and that will haunt me until the end of my days."

He sits down, and nods towards agent Buchanan, who is studying him with an intense stare.

AD Brass turns to Joy, and shouts, "answer my question."

Joy moves her eyes from Klein to Brass, and smirks, "Have you ever had your prostate examined?"

Everybody laughs, and AD Brass becomes red with fury, "what insolence, I should have you arrested for that."

"I will answer your question if you answer mine."

"That has no relevance to the present hearing."

"That's where you are mistaken," she shakes her head, "as it is completely connected to the subject at hand."

She sits back on the uncomfortable chair and looks up, and keeps with her story, "After Jarod met us the first time, he became a constant fixture in our investigation, giving us papers regarding the victims, being very forthcoming. However, as some victims only received a phone call from his office, on a basic random enquiry about their properties on sale, we had no evidence to pin him as the culprit for the murders."

She looks down, and stares at AD Klein, "he enjoyed games. He would circle his prey, study their habits, become a constant presence in the background," her voice becomes lower, "always there, never seen, that's how he attacked his victims. He had different methods of approach, in order to kidnap them."

Joy looks at team, "he had the full uniform of a cop, which he used several times, presenting himself as a police officer and asking for the victim to accompany him to the PD. That's why there were no signs of forced entry, and the victims left with their purses and keys. They went with him willingly."

"He also had a post office uniform and the full FEDEX gear." She lowers her head, "I didn't recognize him in the FEDEX uniform, I was waiting for something sent by my dad, it had the sender's right address on it and I simply invited him in while I checked the package before signing the receipt. I never saw it coming."

She pauses, and fidgets a little, trying to find a way to keep telling her story. She looks at the NCIS team, and they see that she's very uncomfortable. Timothy frowns when her eyes cross with his and immediately fall down to the floor, as if she is ashamed of what she's about to tell.

"He…" she pauses, licks her lips, and tries again, "he liked games." Her eyes are staring fixedly at the floor, close to AD Brass's shoes, and she continues her story.

"He liked to hear our pain… whenever he… had his way with us." She gulps, and looks at AD Klein, and sees the pain on his face, "and he had never tried it with boys before, so he decided to do an experiment with Eric."

"He would insert a…" she pauses, and rubs her face, drying to dispel the images before her eyes, "he would insert a vibrator in Agent Gomez's rectum, and wait for the corresponding physiological response. Eric couldn't help it as his prostate was being mercilessly massaged, and regardless of his mental anguish, his body betrayed him."

She looks coldly at AD Brass, and keeps on with her story, "once Eric was erect, he would put a cock ring on Eric's member, and he would use Eric's body as his torture tool for his chosen girl of the day, denying Eric release until he finished with the girl. If Eric tried to fight him, or deny him his show, then he would take Eric's place in the rape, but then leave only a mess of slaps and wounds in his wake."

"After the third time, Eric wouldn't deny him anymore, just to avoid further injuries on us."

She lowers her head, and she feels a single tear rolling down her face, and she watches it splash into her hand.

"After the third time that Eric was forced onto me, and I saw how that was destroying him mentally, I told Garnett that the vibrator and the cock ring weren't necessary, that we would give him a show without the need of him forcing Eric on us."

"Eric was mentally disintegrating, as he was disgusted by what he was being forced to do, but he was even more vocal against willingly using us. I convinced him otherwise."

"And that's how I killed any type of affection Eric might have held towards me."

"So it was your idea that Agent Gomez actively participate on the rapes," says AD Wiltman.

"It was never rape with Eric. It was self-preservation." She stops and looks at Timothy, and sees the anguished look on his face, "it was either Eric or Jarod, and I would rather have Eric any day before having Jarod again."

"He was fascinated by my scars and he believed that I enjoyed feeling pain, so he never touched me before playing with me a little."

"I knew that if Jarod played with me again," she looks at AD Brass, "I wouldn't survive it."

* * *

Reviews are food for my soul.


	18. Hell

_**Hell**_

_**Somewhere in California  
One week in captivity**_

_Through me you pass into the city of woe:  
Through me you pass into eternal pain:  
Through me among the people lost for aye._

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:  
To rear me was the task of power divine,  
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things  
Eternal, and eternal I endure.  
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd  
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:  
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

_**- Dante's Divine Comedy- Hell Chapter**_

"Eric," Joy says, careful to not open her split lip.

She only hears retching from his corner, as Eric's body rebels against what he has seen and what he has been forced to do.

"Eric, listen to me."

"Eric, you have to listen to me."

He stops retching, and wipes his mouth with his hand, and sits against the wall, being careful with his chained wounded wrists. Joy had tried to wrap them in a ripped piece of his shirt, but there was a little blood on the bandages again.

He looks disheartened at the dead woman on the corner, her lifeless eyes looking at him accusingly. Jarod had cut her on her thigh, cutting the vein, and she slowly bled to death as he raped another woman, forcing her to look at the dying woman until her demise. Now the poor raped woman, _her name is Annie_, thinks Eric, was silently sitting in her corner of the dungeon in foetal position, on her chains, staring at the dead woman.

But after he used the two women, he hurt Joy. Again. And then he used Eric's traitor body to do it. He could feel the nausea coming with full force again, and he hated himself for showing such weakness.

"Eric, please."

"Joy, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I hurt you."

"It's not your fault."

"But I wanted to… to... I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick," he keeps repeating and starts hitting his head against the wall, disgusted at himself, "I'm sick."

"ERIC, DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME ALONE WITH HIM," shouts Joy. She's scared he might hurt himself. She sits, mindful of her wounds and aches.

Eric stops, and looks at her with tears on his eyes, "that's not how I planned us to be."

"I know," she says, and the tears run on her face.

"I wanted… I wanted big fluffy pillows, and an awfully big hotel bed."

Joy smiles between her tears, "there would be a date, and dinner in a fancy place in Hollywood, then some dancing, then you would fold to my charms," he shakes his head, "but that's now gone."

"Eric, please, don't torture yourself like that."

"I can't do it again, he'll force me but I will fight him, I won't…"

"If you fight him, he will kill you."

"But I can't do it, I can't hurt you again," he says, and he's crying.

"Eric, please, I'll find a way, but please, don't leave me alone with him," she begs, but Eric shakes his head.

"I'm done, I've made up my mind."

"Eric, please, I won't let him hurt you again."

"I can't, I can't, I CAN'T." He shouts, and the four other living victims in the dungeon stare at him, with dead eyes. They've been captive for too long to have any whisper of hope to escape.

"Eric, please."

"Joy." He looks at her, heartlessly.

"I won't let him hurt you anymore, but whatever happens, don't give up on me. Don't give up on us, and, more importantly, don't give up on the team. They are looking for us, and they will find us."

He stares at her, "I'll find a way, but please, hang on, just for a little while."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Jarod arrives the following day, feeds them, and gets prepared for a new round of his games. Joy suggests him a new one.

He looks at her and smiles.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

**_Two weeks later_**

"Everybody in position, copy that."

"Leo, give me your status," says Dimitri, from his tactical position overlooking the valley and the house in it.

"Infrared readings confirm six individuals; three are in the left corner, other three are spread out on the perimeter of the basement." He types some more, and another diagram comes up on one of his three screens. "I have the map of the property here with me, according to the city plan there are two doors leading to the basement, one of them is right in the middle of the field, a vestige of the time the property was used for smuggling rum into California back in the Gold Rush. Be sure to cover that one, ok Kor."

"Send me the coordinates," says Norm.

Anita approaches the men, "all our teams are in position, and we're ready."

"As we'll ever be," says Dimitri.

"Do you think they are still alive?" Lorraine is wearing her assault gear, ready for action, but she's deeply concerned for her teammates.

"They better be," says Norm, grabbing his own gun and getting ready for action.

Dimitri nods, and touches his radio, "here is Korcevic, at my signal, we're going in. We don't know the state our people might be, so be careful to get to them and get them out alive."

"Radio silence until I give you ok."

They all move into position, slowly nearing the house. The dilapidated property would be the perfect set for a horror movie, as it already had a chamber of horrors in it.

"Go," Dimitri whispers, and everyone silently enter the house.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Down in the basement, Eric is slowly moving his body against Joy's. He shakes as he feels cold metal touching him at the base of his spine, slowly going down touching his buttocks. He freezes, and he feels pressure against his balls.

"Why did you stop, I didn't give you permission to stop," hisses Jarod, and Eric leans his head against the pillow.

"I can't continue if you keep a gun at my balls."

"Oh, sorry," and he smiles and takes a step back, and Eric continues what he had stopped.

"Nice show, give her a good time," Eric grunts, but doesn't answer the teasing.

"Joy, I…" he whispers, and closes his eyes and changes the rhythm. Jarod smiles.

Joy gently kisses his neck, "it's ok, just let go,"

"I can't help it, I…" he speeds up, and Joy folds one of her legs over his waist, "it's ok." Once he's given permission, he freezes and shuts his eyes, and lets nature take its course.

They remain like that for a moment.

"Now it is my turn to have fun," he stands up and walks towards one of the girls, Helen, and grabs her by the arm. At the exact same moment, the doors to the basement are blown open, and a group of men in assault gear enter the room.

"FBI, FREEZE."

Of course Jarod doesn't mind the warning, and fires at the people with riffles pointed at him.

They shoot back, and a little inferno starts.

Eric grabs Joy and rolls her out of the bed towards the floor, and covers her body with his, just waiting for the firefight to end.

Jarod is shot, but the victim is shot as well, as he used her as shield.

Once on the floor, he hid himself behind her body, letting her body be riddled by bullets.

"Stop," orders Dimitri.

He and the other agents approach the fallen man, and he is smiling, even though he's bleeding.

"Where are my agents?"

Jarod just smiles.

"Kor?"

He looks to the right, where a bed with chains attached to each bedpost is cemented to the floor, and sees two familiar faces poking from the other side of the bed. They are emaciated, with deep dark circles on their eyes, but alive.

"Thank God," he starts approaching, but he's stopped by Eric, who raises his hand in surrender.

"Can we have your FBI jacket?"

"Why?" Norman is confused at the bizarre behavior of his colleague.

"Believe me," he looks down at Joy, and at her old scars and the new ones on her back, "you don't want to know."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The surviving victims, Annie, Jocelyn and another Eric never found out her name, along with Joy and Eric, properly covered with FBI jackets, were herded out of their makeshift dungeon and another team was sent in to collect evidence and the decaying bodies of the other victims.

Eric was being supported by Norman, while Joy was being smothered with care by Anita and Lorraine. His eyes watched her slow progress, and he was aware of how uncomfortable she must be.

"Eric, a word with you, please," Norm looks at Eric, who nods and sits down on a chair taken out of the house, and watches the activities of the teams going in and out. His eyes turn back to the female agent who shared hell with him, not letting him dive into despair.

Dimitri watches his agent, and notices where his eyes are driven to.

"I don't have to tell you what it looked like down there."

"I know, Kor, and it is exactly what you are thinking, and even more."

"Care to tell me what happened?"

"I don't think I can explain," he turns tortured eyes to Dimitri, "I don't think I ever want to."

He looks back at the house, and sees a stretcher being carried out, and the bastard lying on it, "I wish you had him killed."

"He has to pay for his crimes," Eric looks up at him, and Dimitri continues, "all of them."

Both men turn and look at Joy, who is talking to one of the survivors, the youngest victim Jarod ever had, Jocelyn. She was fifteen, and was thirteen when he had kidnapped her.

They hear a commotion and it is as if time freezes or as if it starts going in slow motion, they see Jarod, shooting one of the paramedics and turning towards the cluster of women, they shout a warning but it comes too late.

The young girl is frozen in fear, and Joy jumps in front of her body.

A shot is heard.

And birds were scared by the sudden noise, and flew away.

Then silence and nothingness.

* * *

Reviews are food for the soul.


	19. How to save a life

_**How to save a life  
**__**FBI Internal Affairs Audience  
Present day**_

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend_  
_Somewhere along in the bitterness_  
_I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_Had I known how to save a life_

**_The Fray – How to save a life_**

"This hearing is adjourned until tomorrow." Says AD Brass.

Joy stands down from the witness stand, and slowly approaches the team. She can't face them, and they are painfully aware that she wished that they had not heard what she had just revealed.

Faith approaches her, "Come, sweety, time to go home."

She follows her sister out of the room, not meeting the eyes of any of her teammates.

Once in the corridor, they stop and gather in a semicircle, she glances briefly at Timothy, but sees only a frown on his face, and lowers her eyes again, defeated. No one knows what to say, so they just fidget uncomfortably.

"Agent Buchanan," a frail voice calls out, and all three sisters turn to where the call came. Former AD Christopher Klein walks with a limp, supported by a young man on his side, towards the agents, "Agent Joy Buchanan, a moment of your time, please."

Joy looks at Gibbs, who nods and then she turns to her former supervisor. Hope is not very friendly towards him.

"What do you have to say that she could possibly want to hear, AD Klein? You were one of the main forces behind the first witch-hunt, and don't think we have forgotten that it was you who allowed Gomez back into service, and who filed the first claims of dereliction of duty towards the team."

The former AD looks at his former agent, and he has a haunted expression on his face. His health deteriorated rapidly this last year, and he was on a countdown. She looks back at him with no expression on his face, and he feels the burden of the guilt he has been carrying all these months.

"I know that it comes too late," she just stares at him, impassively, "but I would like to apologize."

She keeps staring at him.

"They say hindsight is always twenty/twenty, and if I had known then what I know now, I would have acted differently, and I would not sacrificed one of the best agents I had only to save face and to protect the bureau."

"I was forced to choose, either save the FBI's reputation or the BAU, and," he looks sadly at the group staring at him, "obviously I chose poorly."

"For that I beg your forgiveness, as I've also paid a high price for my choices." He shows her his hands, which are shaking uncontrollably, due to the early onset of Parkinson's disease. "Doctors gave me one year, maybe two years tops." Joy approaches the old bureaucrat, who made life for the BAU hell and finally was one of the main forces behind the slander campaign on the team, and the person who ordered her to either retire or quit.

She stares up at him, and he just keeps looking at her, waiting for her verdict. She gets his hands in hers, and feels the shakes he can't control coursing his fingers.

"Jarod has already claimed too many lives with his acts." She looks up at the former AD, "don't let him turn you into another one of his victims."

She sighs, and lets go of his hands, "there's nothing to forgive, you can go in peace." The old bureaucrat nods, relieved, and turns to the young man on his side, "let's go, Junior," and his grandson takes his hand and slowly leads the old AD down the corridor.

Hope's mouth is a perfect O, and she's not as forgiving. She approaches Joy and hisses, "that's it, you won't even give him a piece of your mind, he made your life hell," Joy glances at her sister and walks back to the team, and Hope keeps talking, "forced you to give up a job you loved, made you persona non grata at the Bureau, left the BAU take the full responsibility for everything that happened, and you let him go with a slap on his wrist, 'there's nothing to forgive,' that's bullshit and you know it, and…"

"He's dying, Hope," Joy interrupts her sister and shuts her ranting, "He's not going to live more than six months, his doctors lied." She looks around at the agents, who are silently looking at her, "he took the best decision he could at that time with the type of intelligence he had at that specific moment. His main concern was to protect the Bureau, and he did it to the best of his abilities." Her gaze stops on Timothy, "I was just a convenient scapegoat."

"But you certainly wanted to give him a piece of your mind, didn't you?" says Ziva.

"That time is long gone, Ziva." She keeps staring at Timothy. "Long gone."

Faith looks from Joy to Tim, and sees that there's a lot to be cleared between the pair. She latches on to the arm of Hope, who is opening her mouth again, "I have to get Stephy from ballet classes, see you tomorrow sis," and drags a protesting Hope down the corridor.

Gibbs studies his agents: Tim staring down at Joy with tense shoulders, Joy looking at him, holding nothing back, showing all the hurt and pain, but not folding under the pressure of his stare.

Gibbs turns to his other agents, "David, DiNozzo, time to go."

"Ah, but Boss…" Gibbs turns to stare at him coldly, and DiNozzo thinks twice, "I'm ready to leave boss," and they start walking down the corridor, not without sending a worried glace first to the two silent agents involved in a staring match.

Gibbs looks at his two agents, but they both ignore him, too intent on studying each other.

"You know where to find me."

He leaves them in the corridor, and walks towards the elevator doors that Tony was holding open for him.

Once the doors close, Timothy takes a step towards Joy, and she fidgets a little under his intense gaze but doesn't step back. He's studying her face like a bug under a microscope, trying to reconcile what he heard that afternoon with the woman he knew, worked with and lived with for the last year and a half.

He can see a myriad of different emotions on her face, as he's very adept of reading her: despair, pain, shame, anger, confusion, all flutter for a second on her face. The longer he stares at her without saying a word, the deeper is the despair that he can see shining on her brown eyes.

Finally she forfeits to the staring match, and looks down at her own hands. She sighs and he sees that her shoulders slump defeatedly, and when she looks back at him, he can see that she has given up all hope.

"Ok," she mutters, and starts to walk towards the elevators, but her path is blocked by his left arm. She looks at him, confused.

He studies her a little longer, and then gives her one of his hands, palm up, asking for her hand. She looks at him, even more confused. He approaches her, and leans down and whispers in her ear, bringing a shiver to her body and a small flame of hope to her heart.

"I told you before, I'm not going anywhere."

He takes a step back, so she can see his face again, and she sees only tenderness and understanding on his eyes. She fights to hold back her tears, and slowly puts her small hand in his.

They leave the building, still holding hands.

* * *

Reviews are food for the soul.

a/n: ahhhhhhhhh McGee!


	20. Pain management

_**Pain management**_

_Pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, __you just breath__e __deep__ and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn't let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can't outrun it and life always makes more. - __**Dr. Meredith Grey**__** in Grey's Anatomy**_

They drove in different cars to McGee's place, and when he left his car he noticed she didn't move from hers. He walks towards it and knocks on the window. She startles and opens the window.

"You coming?" he asks, with concern on his voice.

She gets out of the car, locks it and follows him upstairs.

She kneels to greet Jethro, and hugs the dog, trying to find some comfort in its exuberance.

McGee throws his keys on the kitchen counter and looks inside the fridge, always with an eye on the dog and his partner.

"We still have some leftovers from the chicken pie from yesterday; we could do some legumes and some white rice to go with it." He says, with his head inside the fridge. When he gets no answer, he looks at her again and sees her in the same position, sitting on the floor with the dog's head on her lap.

"We could order something in, if you want." He offers. No reaction.

"Hey" he calls again. She stands up, and with a soft, "I'm going to take a shower," leaves him standing in the kitchen, with a Tupperware in his hand. He stays there some moments, trying to figure out what he could possibly do to improve her mood.

He looks at Jethro, who just whimpers as he if he feels the tension between his master and his mate, and McGee leaves the leftovers on the kitchen counter and follows her to the bathroom. He opens the door and looks inside. She had turned on the water, and the steam of it is starting to fill the small bathroom. She made a pile of her clothes over the closed lid of the toilet, and she looked small and lost sitting naked on the very tip of the toilet seat, waiting for the right temperature to enter under the stream.

He approaches the running stream, feels up the water, and burns his hand. It was boiling hot.

He adjusts the water temperature to a more acceptable one, and kneels in front of her, seeing how lost and broken she looks. He softly removes some stubborn curls which hide her face, and sees how tears are slowly falling down her face.

He plays with her hair, "Is there something I can do to make you feel better?"

She says softly, "you are already doing it."

She stands up, wipes her face and enters under the stream and closes the plastic curtains.

McGee stays for some moments staring at her silhouette, its faint outline moving behind the plastic. He moves towards the door, but stops with his hand on the handle. He walks back, and starts to get undressed. Once he's naked, he opens the curtain and steps on the shower, where he finds Joy supporting herself against the wall, her shoulders shaking, and struggling not to let the sobs well up from her soul.

He grabs her in his arms, and holds her against his body, and brings her under the water stream.

"It's ok, I got you."

Her sobs become louder, and her tears mix with the water washing down their bodies.

_NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS_

Tim paid the takeout delivery man, and closes the door. He grabs the Chinese takeout boxes, and takes them to the bedroom, where Joy was laying on the bed, unmoving.

Her eyes are closed, and she's lying on her belly, the scars on her back clearly visible against the tanned skin.

Tim sits on the bed, and shakes one of the boxes, "dinner is here." He opens one of the boxes, leaves the others on the bedside table and starts eating, and sees when she blinks her eyes, and turns her head towards him.

"I'm not hungry."

He keeps eating, munching his food. He puts the box on the bedside table and lies down on his belly beside her, supporting his upper body on his elbows and waits until she opens her eyes again and looks at him. He uses his left hand to softly glide over her back, and he traces her scars with his fingertips.

"You once told me that Reid," he traces her scars down her back, "once he saw your scars, he couldn't see past them, he couldn't see you, he was stuck trying to understand and figure out your experiences, and forgot that the scars were part of you, but not necessary the whole of you."

His hand goes lower, and he slowly traces the marks on her lower back, where the word Servant is written, "I think you should do the same."

He supports his head on his right hand, and keeps on caressing her scarred back with his left.

"I can't pretend to understand what you had gone through. My mind can't even grasp the horrors you have been through, but you made it. You survived through it all, and you were able to rebuild your life from the ashes and the rubble of your former life."

His hand moves up to massage her neck, and he can clearly feel the tense muscles underneath the skin.

"You are not the Servant anymore." He leans over, and deposits a kiss on her shoulders, never taking his eyes out of hers.

"I'll be in the kitchen if you need me." He leaves the bed, gets his takeout box, and leaves the bedroom.

She lingers on the bed a little longer, thinking about what he said.

Her eyes move to the takeout box he left on the bedside table. She sits, opens it, and deeply inhales the aroma of her favorite dish. She looks towards the door, and hears him making noise in the kitchen. She grabs one of his used shirts, which he discarded on a chair after returning from work, dons it and leaves the bedroom.

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	21. A Grief Observed

**_A Grief Observed_**

**_LA  
Two years ago  
two weeks after being released from Jarod's dungeon_**

_Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.__ - _**C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed**

"How could you not help me?"

"It is your fault I'm dead."

"He wants to play games."

"You hurt me, Eric."

"It's your fault."

"It's your fault."

"It's your fault."

"NOOOOOOOOOO," Eric shouts, and tries to get his breathing under control. His legs are tangled in the blankets, and he can hear his heart pumping blood desperately in his chest.

Another nightmare plagued night. He looks at the clock on the bedside table, and the numbers glare back at him. Three twenty in the morning.

He was able to get what, two hours of sleep.

He leaves the bed, and gingerly goes to the bathroom. Once the lights are on, he studies the reflection in the mirror, and sees a stranger looking at him.

Very skinny, because of the loss of body mass during their captivity and undernourishment, he still has some bruises of the beatings he received for not being a willing participant in that bastard's games.

His wounds were minor, compared to the mental anguish and torture endured by the the other three victims who survived months, some even years in captivity. And then there's Joy…

He leans down, and feels bile coming up, even though he had nothing for dinner the previous evening. The doctors were carefully optimistic, but had ordered the family to say their goodbyes, as the shot had punctured the pleural lining of her lung, and even though they drained off the fluids from her lung, she developed an inflammation in it, which greatly debilitated her already fragile body.

She had been in a coma for two weeks, and it was his fault.

He opens the bathroom cabinet on the wall, and studies the antidepressant pills and the pain meds he was prescribed. He had been through therapy with a licensed psychologist at the Bureau, and he has been working through some issues with her.

He had been cleared for light desk duty, until further notice, no field trips.

He puts the pain meds back in the cabinet, and takes one of the antidepressants dry. The pain meds had a very strange effect on him, and he had to work the following morning.

At least the antidepressants wouldn't give him more nightmares, not that he needed more than he already had.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Hey man, how are you doing?"

Eric looks around to see who is talking to him, and sees his Quantico colleague Warren Burns standing right behind him in the line for the buffet. He had already gotten his things, but was waiting like a puppy for the breadcrumbs of attention Eric would show him sometimes.

"Hey Burns."

"You look better than last time I saw you, was it what, three days ago?" Eric always thought that Burns was like an overgrown puppy, or a restless Chihuahua, running after a bone. He never really figured out that Eric did not consider him his friend, he just accepted his presence as part of the job.

"Thanks I guess." Eric moves down the line and starts putting food on his plate.

"I was going through the forensic evidence of your case, and I have to say that I was right, he kept the earlier victims as trophies indeed, and the detailed workmanship he used to inflict pain without …"

"Burns," says Eric between his teeth.

"What?"

"I'm going to eat, and I have no wish to revisit that particular case. So, if you don't mind…" he waves his hand, indicating that Burns should move and leave him alone.

But Burns is not someone who is easily dissuaded, and keeps talking.

"Have you heard the latest news?"

"No, but I'm sure my ignorance will not last much longer," he says, his voice laden with irony, but Burns doesn't really notice the unwillingness of his colleague and keeps talking.

"They are saying that Garnett's lawyers are going to plead insanity, trying to save him from the Gas Chamber."

Eric puts a bottle of water along with his food on his tray. He opens it and takes a deep gulp of it.

"Really?"

"Yes."

He starts walking towards the pay line, but Burns is still following him. He stops and Burns bumps with him, almost sending his tray to the floor and his bottle of water falls on the floor. The lid wasn't properly closed, and the water starts flowing out of it.

Eric looks pissed at Burns, who looks properly chagrined at the older agent.

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, here take mine," he gives him his own bottle of water, "I've opened it but I didn't drink any of it."

Eric stares at Burns, grabs the bottle and leaves to pay for his food. He, unfortunately, didn't see the maniac glee on Warren Burns' eyes when he saw the agent drinking from the bottle.

"Drink, drink more, my friend." He mutters, darkly.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Dimitri watches the erratic behavior from his desk bound agent worriedly from his office. Since the abduction and subsequent torture by Garnett's hands, his young profiler hasn't been the same. After the traumatic rescue and the mandatory debriefing, he was submitted to some mandatory counselling sessions with one of the Bureau's approved psychologists, and reinstated to desk duty only one week after their rescue.

However, Dimitri wasn't sure that the sessions were resulting in any positive outcome. If anything, Eric tried to transmit self-control and indifference towards what happened to him, but Dimitri could see the cracks beginning to appear in his polished mask. His tired looks and dark circles around his eyes were silent witnesses of sleepless nights, and he was still losing weight, despite the medical warnings that he should eat more.

_Never profile a profiler_, thinks Dimitri. He looks down at the report given to him by the Bureau assigned psychologist, and the sycophant idiot gave his agent's recovery glorious praise. He wasn't able to see the fading light in his eyes, the hunched manner of his shoulders whenever he was alone, the absence of inappropriate jokes in inopportune times, and the restless staring at the empty chair of his partner, who right now lingered between life and death, unfortunately more dead than alive, in a hospital a couple of miles away.

Dimitri slowly returns to his desk, and moves the mouse, stopping the screensaver and opens a new email addressed to AD Klein. He pauses for a moment, and looks out at the bullpen through the glass walls, where his agents are silently working through the evidence of their latest case.

He sighs, and starts typing.

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	22. Basement Talk

_**Basement Talk**_

"_Fear__ not your enemies, for they can only kill you.  
__Fear__ not your friends, for they can only betray you.  
__Fear__ only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers  
to walk safely on the earth." __**Edward Yashinsky quotes**__** -Jewish **__**German**__**Poet**_

"Boss?"

Gibbs looks up from his boat, that he's slowly sanding down late into the night, and sees his agent at the top of the stairs.

Joy is standing by the door, "Your front door was open."

"It usually is." He keeps sanding his boat. She slowly goes down two steps and sits down on top of the stairs, but doesn't come down. He glances at her, but does not stop his activity, as it helps to settle his mind after the horrific things he heard during the FBI hearings he had attended these last few days. Each day that goes by, the more he's convinced that the paper-pushers at the Bureau are there just to make things even more difficult for their own agents, creating difficulties that seem impossible to surmount.

The last day of the hearing had been particularly gruesome, as Buchanan had been forced to relate her ordeal the first time she was kidnapped by that psychopath, and Gibbs was more in awe of his young agent as the time went by. During the investigation of her second kidnapping, he had the displeasure of reviewing the forensic report of her injuries with Ducky, and according to the gentle Scot it was nothing short of a miracle that she was alive and back on track again.

And trying to dispel the images the report he read and the testimony he heard today created in his mind, he was sanding away on his boat at three thirty in the morning.

He had the pleasure to meet the amazing Clan Buchanan, and he was certain that the only reason for her full recovery and return to duty was the careful support and encouragement given by her parents and close family.

"You're not coming down?"

"Ah…" she shrugs, "as long as I have the choice, I don't go down in basements anymore. Sorry."

He stops sanding the boat, "Don't apologize," and grabs one wood stool he has close to the work counter and moves it close to the stairs. "It's a sign of weakness." He puts it on the end of the stairs and sits on it, and look at his agent, who is studying the frame of the boat he had been working on before her arrival from the top of the stairs.

"So this is the famous boat in the basement."

He smirks, "one of them."

She looks surprised at Gibbs, "were there more than one?"

He nods, and she smiles, "what happened to them?"

Gibbs shrugs, but stays silent.

She smiles and nods, and turns to the boat again.

"Where is McGee?"

"I left him asleep. He was dead tired, and the last few days have been very hard on him." She looks at him, and says softly. "Actually, I personally think the last few months have been very hard on him, especially since I joined the team."

"You think?" She looks at him and shrugs. Gibbs folds his arms, and stares at his agent, demanding an explanation.

She leans her head against one of the banisters, and says softly, "after LA, I really thought my career was over, that even if I was given a clean bill of health I would be eternally doing transcripts of wiretapping or boring endless stakeouts."

She looks at Gibbs, "that's what I was doing back at NCIS LA, they put me on a support team and, as I still was on desk duty, I was given a box full of wiretapping done during a seven month undercover assignment and told to transcribe it."

She rolls her eyes at the task she had, remembering the endless hours doing the most boring job on the face of the earth.

"I hated it, and I hated it even more that whenever I left the building I would look around and wait for Leo or Anita or Dimitri to pick me up at the door."

She smiles softly, "when I was given the chance to come to DC, I couldn't pack my things fast enough."

Gibbs smirks, and says "and you had no idea what you would find when you finally got here."

Joy laughed, "Anything would be better than transcribing endless hours of other people having sex and talking about football for hours in a bar."

Both laugh, but they soon fall in a comfortable silence. Joy is picking at her own cuticules, frowning at her own nails, in a nervous habit she has when she is deeply troubled.

"How are you dealing with things?"

"Probably as well as you did when you decided to kill the murderer of your wife and child." Gibbs becomes a granite slab, and his face becomes a stone mask, and Joy keeps talking, "or when you decided to take the rap for killing Ziva's brother here in your basement, when we both know that she made the shot."

Gibbs stares at his agent, wondering where she wants to go with this conversation.

She looks at him, and she sees that he's not smiling anymore.

"I'm a profiler, and I read the files, and there were inconsistencies in them," she shrugs at him, "as they do not make sense from a psychological point of view, and I'm well aware of the military mindset of the marines. None of my brothers would have let that man go unpunished. I understand the motivation behind your actions and the marine's mentality that guided them, but despite whatever satisfaction you might have felt for doing that," she closes her eyes, feeling emotionally exhausted, "it still doesn't turn a wrong thing into a right thing, much less turn it into a fair option."

"You just did what you had to do at that moment and," she waves her hand in the air, dismissively, "now you have live with your decision and its consequences for the rest of your life."

Gibbs is still staring at his agent.

"So you keep building boats in your basement, trying to soothe your troubled mind enough to silence the angry voices from the past," she looks at him, smiling between her tears, "or the incessant nagging of the voices of the present."

"I wonder if I should start building boats." She sniffs, and wipes a tear, and supports her forehead staring at the frame below.

Gibbs's face changes, and he slowly climbs the stairs and sits down besides his agent, who is silently crying, looking at the unfinished boat.

"I destroyed him," she looks at Gibbs, "despite Jarod's actions, my actions towards Eric were even worse because he trusted me to keep him safe, and I failed."

"Each time he was forced on me, and I told him that it was ok, it simply tore a huge chunk of his soul away, I could clearly see it, because I knew he liked me, Boss," she sobs, and Gibbs touches her shoulder and squeezes it in solidarity, "he really liked me."

"You weren't the one who pulled the trigger," says Gibbs, "he did it, of his own free will." She stares blearily at him, "Well, maybe not of his own free will, as he was drugged and having hallucinations, but he's the one who did it," they pause, thinking about the young man destroyed both by torture at the hands of a maniac, and by the jealousy and pettiness of a fellow agent.

"You did what you had to do in order to survive, no one should judge you for that."

They stay in silence for a while, thinking about the past, the ones lost in battle, and the scars that their absence left behind.

Joy wipes her nose with her hand, and dries her tears and smile at Gibbs, "I´m tired of crying."

Gibbs smiles back, but doesn´t say anything.

"Richard Bach once said that _'__Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.__' _I think that's mine. That's the one I will remember for the rest of my life."

"I don´t believe that."

"You don´t?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Rule 11."

Joy smiles, and shakes her head, "I'm not a great follower of your rules, and I have to confess that I've never memorized any of them."

Gibbs smirks, and says "When the job is done, walk away."

Joy studies his face, and nods. "Ok, that's a good rule." She turns to the boat again, "what are you going to name her?"

"What makes you think it is a she?" Gibbs laughs a little, as he had had exactly the same conversation with her father, a couple of days ago.

"Since the beginning of time, man liked to name things. Things he cannot control, like the oceans, adverse weather conditions or boats, were always named after women."

"What makes you think that I can't control my own boat?"

Joy smirks at Gibbs, "you might think you are in control, but the sea is unforgiving," she turns to the boat, "like life, it has a fickle nature, and at any given moment you might think you are steering your boat into one direction, but it will always break free and do whatever it wants and force you to take another way. But then, sometimes, the destination is not important, the journey is."

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	23. Judgement day

_**Judgement day**_

_**Present day**_

_Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - __**Lance Armstrong**_

The senior agents silently entered the room and took their seats, indicating the beginning of the hearing on that day.

Once they were seated, Gibbs's team sat down as well as Faith and Hope, and the other agents who had given their testimony during the course of the hearings.

"Where is Ducky?" whispers Tony to Ziva, as he notices Gibbs discretely looking at his wristwatch.

"He said he had a package to collect," whispers Ziva back.

AD Brass stands up from his chair and goes before the Assistant Directors and start giving his speech.

"We were presented with incontestable evidence that, in the course of the investigation of Jarod Garnett's case, the BAU members showed irresponsibility towards the victims involved and lack of professionalism," he turns towards Joy, "as their own self-preservation was put into first place, before the wellbeing of the victims. So I suggest that we keep the black marks on the records of Anita Hernandez, Dimitri Korcevic, Lorraine Johansen, Leonard Parsley, Norman Glascock and Eric Gomez, and keep the charges of dereliction of duty against them."

While he was speaking, Ducky enters the room, followed by a gorgeous tall brunette in a professional suit. He guides her to one of the seats, and sits by her side, and looks in Gibbs' direction.

Gibbs smiles when he sees his friend, and his smile turns into a smirk when he turns to the pedantic man spouting nonsense before the brass of the FBI.

Tony and Ziva just look at Gibbs, confused, noticing their boss' change of mood, but it passes unnoticed by Joy, whose head is down and she is staring, as if fascinated, at her and McGee's intertwined hands.

"The creation of another Behavioral Analysis Unit in the West Coast was a mistake, the evidence here shown proved that, as since its beginning there were signs that it was doomed to fail. During the last days we heard testimony after testimony showing the unprofessional approach they had towards the cases, and how they failed at their jobs in their most crucial hour, resulting on their own demise by the hands of a colleague. How could a team of highly trained professionals, specialized in forensic profiling, not see the deterioration of the psyche of someone they worked side by side day by day?"

"But they did," says the brunette that arrived with Ducky, as she stands up, "they were aware of their colleague's deteriorating mental capacity and had already filed a request to stand down the whole team until further notice."

"What?" Joy is startled and looks around to the stranger.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" AD Wiltman demands to know. The stranger stands down and introduces herself.

"I'm Doctor Vanessa Chilton, I'm a FBI enrolled psychiatrist and the assigned one to study the recovery of Agent Gomez after his captivity on the Garnett's case."

Joy frowns at that, as nobody had been able to track down the psychiatrist during the first witch-hunt, and now she appears again out of nowhere in the second one.

"I would like to present my findings."

"What could you possibly add that we don't know already from the archives?"

The brunette smiles, "you obviously aren't aware that, prior to his death, Special Agent Korcevic had already requested the grounding of the entire BAU team, and the removal of Special Agent Eric Gomez from service."

There is an outbreak of murmuring among the people in the room, and AD Brass becomes red with rage, as that information has never been released, "and how are you aware of that?"

She opens her briefcase, and moves to the senior agents and gives out folders to each AD sitting in the panel.

"Because I was copied in the memo, and kept it on file. I knew I would need it someday."

She looks back at the audience chairs, where the NCIS agents are and where she can see Joy sitting, "after my assignment as psychiatrist to Eric Gomez, I was quickly transferred to the FBI office in Honolulu, and despite my attempts to contact people back in LA to see how the investigation on their deaths was going, I was stonewalled. I emailed and posted my findings and the affidavits to the Internal Affairs committee at that time, and I was assured that my findings would be added to the investigation," she turns to AD Brass, "which obviously they weren't if we are revisiting those same events again today."

She turns to the AD Wiltman, "three days prior to his death, Agent Korcevic contacted me and AD Klein informing us of his impressions of Agent Gomez. Without Gomez knowing, I was smuggled into the FBI building and kept in the surveillance room, where I watched his interactions with the team, and his actions whenever no one of the team was about, for approximately 48 hours through the security cameras of the floor."

"After watching that, and seeing how it differed from my initial impressions of how he acted in his visits to my office, I approved Korcevic's request to ground Agent Gomez indefinitely, and further suggested that the whole team be taken out of rotation until they were able to better deal with the trauma."

"However, my suggestion came too late, as I sent the email the same evening Agent Gomez went on his rampage and murdered his colleagues in the middle of the night, a couple of hours later. The following morning, I was immediately ordered to relocate, but still I was assured that my final report would be added to the subsequent investigation."

AD Klein is looking at the psychiatrist, horrified, from his seat in the hearing.

AD Wiltman looks at AD Klein, and asks the psychiatrist, "Are you implying that AD Klein was aware of the deterioration of the mental health of his subordinate, and willingly ignored your medical opinion, and indirectly caused the murders of five agents?"

AD Klein shakes his head vigorously, "I never received those emails."

"Are you saying that these emails mysteriously disappeared? How can you explain that?"

"I can't explain, but I assure you, I've never received such reports." He looks at Joy, "if I had, I would have done things differently."

"I can," says McGee, standing up. Joy looks at him, and he just smiles at her and leaves to stand beside the psychiatrist.

"Who are you?" says AD Brass, pissed, as he sees things are changing at the hearing.

McGee walks up to AD Wiltman, and slowly deposits a small transparent evidence case, the size of a plastic case of an old undeveloped film. In it, there is a small circuitry board.

"I'm Special Agent Timothy McGee, from NCIS," he turns to AD Brass, and says, ironically, "that stands for Naval Criminal Investigation Services, if you don't know." Brass starts to fume, and McGee turns to Wiltman again, "and I'm a computer forensics expert. That piece of evidence was found in Assistant Director Klein's former computer, and according to the degree of rust and accumulation of dust on it, we can theorize that it has been on said computer since the time of the murders."

AD takes the evidence case and shakes the circuitry in his hand, "what is this?"

"That has a long technical name, that isn't really important right now, but it basically is an espionage backdoor. Once physically connected to the motherboard of any computer, it can give total control of said computer station to a remotely operated computer or notebook. It piggybacks information and renders all data available to the one controlling the backdoor."

"There are software programs specially developed to operate in similar ways, but the internet security firewalls of the FBI building would have found and blocked any type of infiltration if done from an outside source."

"A physical connection to the hacked computer guaranteed secure access to the information on the station, bypassing any type of firewalls or proxies that might have stood on the way of an invasion."

"Are you implying that I was being hacked?" AD Klein is shaking, this time with fury.

"Not only hacked, you were being fed only specific information, anything that didn't follow this invader's specific agenda was erased or edited, in your own machine, leaving no forensic trail to be followed outside of it."

"How come nobody noticed it before? Weren't there protocols to avoid that?"

"It seems that we have better geeks than you," says Gibbs from where he's sitting, and laughter erupts from the audience, and AD Brass looks at Gibbs with murder in his eyes.

Tim cracks a smile, when he sees Joy smiling at Gibbs.

"There were protocols, but they were created to keep outside invaders out," McGee shakes his head, "they were not geared to keep invaders from inside the Bureau out."

His declaration caused uproar between the agents and assistant directors, who only silenced when Dr. Chilton raised her hand, asking for silence, "I reviewed the interrogation transcripts provided by NCIS during their meetings with Agent Warren Burns, and in my professional opinion he's is a narcissistic psychopath, who had a fixation with Agent Gomez since their training in Quantico. As the years went by, he persisted in his quest for validation for his work shadowing his ideal of hero, of how an agent should be, and when he did not receive the recognition for his efforts he turned against his hero."

"He had the technical knowledge and the opportunity to plant the bug in AD Klein's computer, and he had the access to come and go in the FBI building. Nobody would suspect him as he worked there," says McGee.

"I believe that's my cue," says Ducky, standing up, "as I also have evidence to present to the panel." He waves a folder in hand.

"And who would you be?"

"I'm Doctor Donald Mallard, and I'm a Medical Examiner," he approaches McGee and Dr. Chilton, "and I had the opportunity to study the bodily remains of Agent Eric Gomez in his exhumation, and my findings are nothing if not troubling."

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	24. Faith lost and shaken

_**Faith lost and shaken**_

_Here comes goodbye, here comes the last time  
Here comes the start of every sleepless night  
The first of every tear I'm gonna cry  
Here comes the pain,  
Here comes me wishing things had never changed  
That she was right here in my arms tonight,  
But here comes goodbye_

**_Rascal Flatts – Here comes goodbye_**

"Eric, go home," Eric lifts bleary eyes to Dimitri, who's standing by his work desk, "we can take it from here, you are dead on your feet."

"Thanks Dimitri, but I'm just finishing here."

"I'm going out for a moment, when I come back I want to see your computer off and your butt out of this door."

Dimitri leaves the room, and when Eric looks around the room, all the other agents from the BAU are looking at him. They immediately turn their eyes back to their reports, and Eric turns his bloodshot eyes back to the computer screen. They had been working non-stop on a case ofa small kidnapped child, they just came back from the field and where typing in their reports.

It was three ten in the morning.

"Are you ok, man?" asks Norm, concerned with the wellbeing of his colleague and friend, "you should go home, you look like something the cat dragged in."

Eric smiles tiredly at Norm, "thanks, bro, I'm going to wash my face, and come back to close up shop."

He stands up and leaves the bullpen, under the worried looks of his teammates.

"He shouldn't be here," says Lorraine, shaking her head sadly.

"After this case, we'll all going on a very lengthy vacation," says Anita.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

In the bathroom, Eric finishes washing his face, and gets some paper towels to dry it. Once he looks at the mirror, he freezes when he sees the snickering bastard standing right by his side.

"You're pathetic," says Jarod.

Eric turns around, and sees nothing, but he still can hear Jarod's taunting voice speaking.

"You are weak, and they are all going to pay for your weakness."

"I'm not weak, and you are a hallucination, you are not real." He looks back at the mirror, and now Jarod is standing by his side.

"How are you going to protect them the next time? The next time someone like me comes around? The same way you protected Joy? You are pathetic, and you know that."

"I'm not PATHETIC!" shouts Eric towards the imaginary Jarod, who is grinning at him.

"No, no," Eric starts crying.

"You know what you have to do, it's for their own protection," says Jarod.

"No, I can't…"

"They are going to die anyway, either by my hand or by that of the next crackpot, it is all part of the game," imaginary Jarod is smiling sadistically, "you are just going to protect them from the pain they would suffer by our hands."

Eric supports himself against one of the bathroom doors and slides to the floor, with his head supported by his hands, and his heart hammering under the stress of the hallucination plaguing him. He could feel his soul being slowly torn into pieces, the ragged edges bleeding as his mental capabilities were shutting down under the duress. He moaned in pain, as the burning acid in his stomach made an appearance and he had to rush to the toilet.

The imaginary Jarod just smiled.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Eric leaves the bathroom and goes directly to his desk, and opens a drawer.

Norm looks at him briefly, and turns back to his computer to finish his report. He's tired and wants to go home. He stops typing when he feels Eric's presence by his back.

"Hey man, are you feeling any better?" He turns, but freezes when he sees the gun in Eric's shaking hands.

He never had the chance to react.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Dimitri comes back fifteen minutes later, and sees Eric standing between the BAU desks at their corner of the bullpen. He's staring fixedly at something at the floor.

"Eric? Haven't I told you to go home?"

"It's for their own protection, I had to protect them."

Dimitri slows down as he sees the zoned outlook of his agent, and he notices the gun on his hand for the first time.

"Eric?" He looks around, and sees a blood pool close to Norm's computer, and some female legs on the floorin another blood pool. He recognizes them by their shoes. They are Lorraine's.

"Eric, what have you done?" He looks to the right, and sees Leo's body on the floor. He tried to run, and was hit in the back.

Dimitri puts his hand over his service weapon, as Eric looks at him with tears on his face.

"Kor, I had to protect them."

Dimitri draws his weapon, and points to his own agent. "Eric, I can help you, put the gun down."

"Nobody can, I have to finish what I've started."

"Eric," says Dimitri, his finger ready to shoot.

"I'm sorry, Kor, I'm so sorry, I'm so unworthy and pathetic."

"No you're not, listen, we can get you help, we can change your medication and…"

"NOO," shouts Eric, and he points the gunat his own head. "I'm not worthy anymore."

"Eric," says Dimitri, terror filling his veins at the sight of the young man with a gun pointed at his head. He had known that he wasn't stable, but he believed that he, given time, would get better. How wrong he had been. He thought he had time.

He gets ready to shoot, to maim not to kill his agent, but Eric changes ideas and points the gun at him, and shoots first.

Blood splatters against the glass walls that separate the bullpen of the corridor.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

There is silence for some seconds, then another shot is heard.

The screaming only started early in the morning, when the first cleaning lady arrived.

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	25. Deliverance from Evil

_**Deliverance from Evil**_

_**FBI Internal Affairs Audience  
Present day**_

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Matthew 6:13 **King James Bible**

"In my exhumation of the earthly remains of young Eric Gomez, I found evidence of a systematic poisoning of his organic tissue, due to minute ingestion of ethylene glycol and arsenic trioxide, in the course of his last days on earth."

"And what are these elements?" AD Brass wants to know.

"They are commonly known as respectively antifreeze and one of the most common compounds of arsenic, easily found in drinking water. The symptoms would vary from nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness , dizziness and headache, if administered in small quantities."

"All symptoms that Agent Gomez was already presenting and that were erroneously mistaken as the physiological manifestation of his mental deterioration, resultant of his captivity with Garnett." Says Dr. Chilton.

"What are you implying Dr. Mallard?"

"Agent Eric Gomez was murdered, AD Whiltman," says Dr. Mallard, "he would have died in a slow and agonizing way, as his body was reacting against the poisonous elements being introduced to it, and he just took the shorter way."

"Why did nothing show up on the first autopsy, done by our M.E.s in the Bureau?" asks AD Brass.

"The amount in his body was extremely small and only if you knew what to look for would you find it." Dr. Mallard goes to stand by Dr. Chilton, before the panel, "such minute quantities were being introduced, that his body was absorbing each dose and adapting to it, but as he was already under heavy medication he probably dismissed the nausea as side effects of his already prescribed medicine."

"The physiological poisoning along with his mental deterioration created the perfect setting for the tragedy that later on occurred. There were signs, which were unfortunately misinterpreted and that mistake cost the lives of six brilliant agents," says Dr. Chilton.

"This meeting should not be about assigning blame, it should be justice. About justice finally being dispensed towards heroes who dedicated their lives and souls to fulfilling their duties to the Bureau. And they paid the ultimate price for it," says Ducky.

He turns to the panel, and continues, "they were sacrificed on the altar of pain and despair, by the hands of a young man who was being systematically manipulated by outside forces beyond his control. Both elements, coupled with his antidepressant medicine, could have major side effects like hallucinations and nightmares. If you consider the subject of their investigations, his hallucinations should be nothing short of horrific, and as he was not dealing well with the elements of his last solved case, and Jarod was a constant presence on the back of his mind."

"These are all conjectures and theories, it does not change the fact that Eric Gomez shot five agents and then shot himself," insists AD Brass.

Dr. Chilton gets pissed, and looks at AD Brass with fury.

"Have you at least had the curiosity of seeing the surveillance cameras of the bullpen of that night?"

"No, I read the report," says AD Brass, "seeing the video won't change the fact that Gomez is a murderer."

Dr. Chilton approaches him menacingly, "if you had seen it, you would have seen that Gomez came out of the bathroom completely altered, he approached his colleagues and shot them point blank, not giving them time to react. And the whole time, he was crying and saying repeatedly, 'I'm sorry, I have to protect you.'"

She turns to the panel of senior agents and Assistant Directors.

"When Korcevic arrived, he tried to persuade his agent to surrender and give him his gun, but Gomez said he was not worthy of help, nobody would be willing to help him now, and pointed the gun at his own head. Dimitri drew his gun and had the chance to take down his agent, but he did not wish to injure him and have Gomez still pull the trigger against his own head. He wanted to save him, and when he thought they had finally reached an understanding, Eric turned his gun on Korcevic and killed him. The whole time he kept begging for forgiveness, and then took his own life."

"That's not the attitude of a cold blooded killer. It is the attitude of a traumatized person, who truly believed that the only protection against the horrors he had faced was death. After all, if you are dead, people can't harm you anymore."

She supports her hands on the table and leans down towards AD Whiltman.

"If you blame him for trying to protect his team, you are no better than Garnett."

She stands straighter again and looks at each agent in the panel.

"And you will be as guilty as he was, almost as if you pulled the trigger yourselves."

She turns and returns to her chair, and sits down fuming. Dr. Mallard sighs, and slowly moves to sit by her side.

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	26. Politics and heartbreak

_**Los Angeles  
Two years ago  
Good Samaritan Hospital  
three weeks after being released from Jarod's dungeon**_

The murmuring of voices was becoming stronger, the pull towards the surface irresistible.

"The infection is controlled, but we would like to…"

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…"

"Come on, peanut, you rested enough, time to open your eyes…"

The beeps of the machines were becoming louder, and her breathing was being forced by the introduction of pure oxygen in her lungs, and the pressure down burned like acid. Her chest felt like fire, as if an atomic bomb had blown up inside her breast, and she felt as if an elephant was sitting on her body, as she could barely move.

"Come on, peanut, I know you can do it."

Her eyes fluttered, and watered against the bright light shining behind the person speaking to her. Her eyesight slowly came into focus, and the person leaned down towards her, and she could see the red rimmed blue eyes of her father, with huge dark circles, the result of many days in silent vigil by her bedside, but she could see a smile shining in them, even though his mouth was covered with a white medical mask.

"Welcome back, Joy," he smiles, between his tears.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

After three weeks in a coma, Joy's body was very fragile and the doctors were carefully optimistic about her recovery. She had exceeded all expectations, and after the terrible bout of infection she had in the previous week, the doctors were saying that having her awake was nothing short of a miracle.

However, she still slept most of the day, and whenever she woke up there was one of her siblings or either her mother or father to talk to. They didn't ask her how she was feeling, as the lines of pain and her wheezing breath were testimonies of her difficulties, but they silently stood by her, offering whatever support they could.

Her team did not come to visit, but she figured out they were on some case and probably came whenever she was sleeping.

Her parents did not dispel that notion, just shushed and told her to get better.

Ten days after she woke up from her coma, she finally was taken off the respirator, and they substituted the mask for a nasal canula. They also reduced the intake of medicines and painkillers, so she was able to stay awake for more than two hours at a time. Only the drain in her chest and the central line for medicine were kept in her body, so she was feeling much lighter.

Her eyes fluttered, and she saw the hunched form of a muscular man sleeping uncomfortably on the visitor's chair, his head on her bed, and one of his enormous hands holding her delicate hand in his, as if afraid to break it.

She moves her hand, and plays with his ear, the way she had teased him mercilessly when she was just a little girl and he a man in his first uniform. He wakes up and smiles when he sees her awake. His bright violet eyes, trademark of the Buchanan clan, are staring at her, trying to see her deepest secrets.

"Hey," says John Buchanan.

"Hey Johnny," says Joy in a wheezing whisper, "what are you doing here?"

He lifts his head from the bed, and rubs his face with his hands, trying to dispel the last tendrils of sleep, and fixes his violet eyes back on her.

"I came to take care of you," she frowns at that, "I took some leave from the Marines, I will help dad and mom while you are getting stronger."

"What about Lisa and the kids? They deserve to spend time with you, you are rarely home, it's not fair to them."

Johnny shakes his head, "Lisa is working for another week and then she's also taking some leave, the kids are on school holidays. As soon as she can, she's flying over to Glasgow with them, we all will stay back in the house for a while."

Joy closes her eyes, and smiles tiredly.

"Thanks Johnny. You're the best."

"So are you, peanut." She smiles again, but doesn't open her eyes. John sighs, and studies his adopted sister's face worriedly. He closes his eyes for a moment and says a quick prayer asking guidance for what he's about to do.

He stands up, gets his aviator's jacket off, and lays it on the chair where he had slept. He takes off his shoes, and when she looks at him questioningly he slowly puts his arms under her fragile body and gently lifts her, mindful of her wounds and he's terribly shocked at how light she is, and he moves her to the left, opening a space on the hospital bed on the right.

She submits to his manoeuvre silently, and just smiles when he lays down on her right side and brings her to lay her head on his shoulder.

"You comfortable?" he murmurs against her curls.

"Very," and she closes her eyes again.

He closes his eyes and tries to calm his inner turmoil. He takes her right handin his, and studies the carefully done nails. The broken and ripped nails had grown during her coma, and the scratches on her hands and the contusions on her arms, from her struggles in the basement, had faded from dark brown and blue to a soft yellowish color.

Hope and Grace, during their vigil days and nights by Joy's bedside, had carefully filed and painted each nail, just to ensure that at least those bitter mementos from her captivity would be erased and never remembered.

"Joy," he says in a serious voice.

"Johnny."

"We have to talk." She frowns at the seriousness in his voice and eyes.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

First there was no reaction. Then came denial. Finally, the pain erupted in an anguish filled scream, that filled the room and spilled into the hallways, startling doctors and nurses alike, and the few patients who were awake in that Intensive Care Unit recognized the pain that coursed through it.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Joseph leaves the table and answers the phone. He tenses for a moment, and listens silently whoever is speaking to him. He turns off his mobile phone, and goes back to the table, where Maggie, Matthew, Temperance, Faith and Hope were sitting, while Mark and Lucas were standing by the window. Temperance is nervously chewing her nails, a habit she has not broken since childhood.

His face shows that the news weren't good.

"Was it Johnny?" Hope is twisting her hands nervously.

Joseph nods, but stays silently.

Mark turns to his father, and asks what nobody else had the courage to ask.

"He told her, didn't he?" Joseph nods. "How did she take the news?"

"Badly," Joseph sighs, "they had to sedate her, as they were afraid she would further her injuries. Johnny said he will stay with her until she wakes up again."

Lucas shakes his head, and looks outside the window. Initially only the girls and Joseph and Maggie had gathered in Los Angeles, but as her condition worsened, and the infection settled in, they decided to call out the boys as it seemed that she wouldn't make it, and the doctors had ordered them to say their goodbyes. So Mark had come from his post Germany, Lucas and Johnny requested leave and flew in from Afghanistan a couple of days earlier. Matthew left his assignment in the reconstruction efforts during the tornado season, and came to stay with the family in Los Angeles.

The news of the tragedy in the FBI Bureau building spread like fire in the Bureau grapevine, and Faith and Hope kept their ears wide open for any new source of information.

Contrary to all diagnostics, the infection was defeated, and she woke up a couple of days later. But the whole clan was aware the death of the six agents would hit Joy hard, so they withheld the information for as long as they could. They discussed among themselves who should give her the news, and after much consideration Johnny accepted the responsibility.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, they had to regroup and start thinking of a new strategy, as the prospects were becoming more complicated as the time went by.

"What are they saying in the Bureau, Hope?"

"Basically, they want to save face and they are putting all responsibility and blame on the BAU. They want to charge them for dereliction of duty, for misconduct and give them a black mark on their records. They are saying that Eric's breakdown was solely the BAU's fault and that it is not the Bureau's responsibility that their agents are dead."

"Wasn't he being treated by a psychologist? Isn't therapy mandatory after a traumatic event like that?" Maggie is unhappy with the situation, and wants to find a solution for it, but there's no easy way out.

"Yes, mom," says Faith, "but nobody can find the damn woman, it is as if she vanished into thin air."

"Garnett's case hit the Bureau's credibility badly as the man was friends with some councilmen and also was a regular in the mayor's house. Nobody in high society wants to admit that they were friends with a serial killer, so the Bureau is looking for a convenient scapegoat," says Faith.

"And Joy's the perfect target," says Matthew, and his siblings look at him, "as she is defenseless and the only living person who investigated the case."

"They will crucify her," says Lucas, still looking outside, "and she won't be able to fight back."

"So we fight for her," says Mark, resolute. Maggie and Joseph look at their son proudly, "we'll keep her safe, take her away from the Bureau's sphere of influence and give her time to heal, and run interference for as long as we deem necessary."

"Once she heals, she will want to work again," says Matthew.

"The Bureau is out," says Hope, shaking her head sadly, "I've heard that AD Klein had already issued orders to inform her that if she survives, she should either quit or retire, as she will never act as an FBI agent again, for as long as he lives."

They stay in silence for a moment, each lost in thought.

"Does it have to be in the Bureau?" all eyes turn to Temperance, who up until now had stayed silent. She gulps, but continues, "when I was studying my possible career choices, before I picked the Bureau like you guys," she points to Hope and Faith, "I saw so many Federal Agencies that also employ trained investigators, there is a huge sea out there, the Bureau can't be the only place that needs trained profilers."

"What do you suggest, Tempie?" Lucas turns his chair towards his youngest sister, as hers had been the best idea so far.

"Well, there's the CGIS, NCIS, JAG, CIA, AFIS, DEA, etc etc, the list goes on and on." She waves her hand, frustrated, "hell, even the Pentagon would hire her in the blink of an eye if Mom contacted the right people in the Air Force."

Maggie Buchanan smiles, "that's the most sensible thing I've heard the whole night, Temp," she stands up, and Matthew helps her up, "if you excuse me, I have to make some phone calls," she turns to Joseph, "call Johnny, tell him that we'll be there shortly to talk to Joy's doctors, we need to know how soon we can move her."

She pauses at the door, and turns to her children and her husband, "Hope, Faith, go to the Bureau and gather information, we need to know when and how they will make their move," she turns to Mark, "do you still have the phone number of that girl you dated, the daughter of that judge here in LA?"

He nods, and Maggie starts planning in her head.

"Call her, and tell her we need to talk to her father. We will need all the support we can get to pull this off."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

One week later, Joy had submitted only a written statement to the Internal Affairs committee that had started to investigate the facts. When representatives from the IA came to the hospital, she had already been quietly transferred to Montana, in an Air Force chartered airplane. They received orders from a local judge not to pursue the ailing agent, and were forced to accept her request for extended medical leave.

The IA members vowed that, even if she ever received full health status, she would never work for the FBI again.

And she truly never did.

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Reviews are food for soul.


	27. Picture Perfect

_**Picture Perfect  
Present Day**_

_"Anyone can achieve their fullest potential.  
Who we are might be pre-determined but the path we follow is always of our own choosing.  
We should never allow our fears, or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.  
Your destiny can't be changed, but it can be challenged.  
Every man is born as many men and dies as a single man."_

_**McGee – Endgame.**_

It was a happy talkative group that left the elevators of the Hoover building, and noisily walked towards the exit. There were huge smiles on their faces, as their mission had been accomplished, and justice had been served.

All charges against the BAU had been dropped, and the black marks on their records removed, thanks to the moving speech by Dr. Chilton and Dr. Mallard.

Dr. Chilton studies the serene face of Agent Buchanan, and likes what she sees. She expected a very traumatized lady, or a broken soul as she had found with Eric.

Instead, she found a woman who somehow surrounded herself with a new support system, who fought bravely for her and for those she loved. And if the tender looks between her and the tall green eyed man were any indication, she also found the strength to risk and to fall in love again.

She approaches her, and Joy turns to her with a big smile on her face.

"I don't have words to thank you enough, Dr. Chilton," says Joy, "you were phenomenal in there."

"Don't thank me," she looks at McGee and Gibbs and Ducky, "thank your team, they were the ones who tracked me down. I thought this nightmare was over, and when they told me that they were going to revisit it again, wild horses couldn't keep me away."

"Thank you, thank you very much." They shake hands.

"You were a pleasant surprise, Agent Buchanan," Dr. Chilton studies her face, "I had the pleasure of meeting the other three survivors of Garnett's dungeon previously, and I have to say that you, so far, are one with the best recovery of them all."

She smiles, says her goodbyes and leaves the agents standing on the hall, standing over the FBI seal on the floor.

Joy turns to Ducky, and hugs the gentle M.E.

"Thanks Ducky," she takes a step back, "I don't think we could have made it without your words of wisdom."

"My dear, I believe those bureaucrats just needed a little push in the right direction," says Ducky. Joy's eyes focus at something behind Ducky's back, and as he turns he sees the Assistant Directors getting out of the elevators, and moving to the other side of the hall towards another door. AD Brass glances at them, snarls and keeps walking hurriedly down the corridor.

"Is it always like that with you guys?" Faith is smiling at the NCIS agents. "Intrigue, murder, hacking, blackmailing and twists in the investigation?"

Tony grins at the eldest Buchanan sister.

"Sometimes we even have some background music, probably punk rock from one of Abby's CDs."

"Finally this nightmare is over," says Hope.

Joy is looking at the floor, and for some reason McGee sees her grin getting bigger, as if she is planning on being a naughty girl.

"What?"

"Uhm?"

"What are you thinking?" She shrugs, and looks at Hope.

"Hey Hope, do you have your camera with you?"

Hope grins right back at her, "Of course, I never go anywhere without it, you never know when that perfect shot might happen."

Joy snickers, and McGee is becoming more confused by the minute. The Buchanan sisters always have the power of keeping him on his toes.

"Why don't you go to the peanut gallery and try that Hollywood picture?"

Hope's mouth turns a perfect O, and she looks ecstatic from Joy to Tim, "Oh my God, oh my God, you're doing it, YOU'RE DOING IT."

She opens her bag, grabs her Canon and throws her bag to Faith, and runs back towards the elevators, "don't you dare start without me!"

Joy simply laughs, while the agents watch Hope run like a crazy loon.

"Where's the fire?" asks Tony.

"Is she always like that?" Ziva can't grasp how that crazy acting woman was a FBI agent.

"Just sometimes," says Joy, "when she feels she will soon get a perfect piece of evidence, or simply the latest gossip."

"You guys are crazy, you know," says Ziva.

"Yep," Joy looks up and sees that Hope is already in the second floor gallery, overlooking the entrance hall. She waves her camera in her hand and points it downwards, ready to shoot pictures of the agents down in the hall.

"Why did she have to go up there to take pictures of us?" McGee is looking up at Hope, confused.

"So I could do this," says Joy, and she grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and brings him back to a kiss. He is taken by surprise by her attack, but his brain finally catches up after a few seconds and he folds his arms around Joy's body and gives as good as he gets.

Faintly in the background he can hear catcalls and whistles, but all his senses are focused on the woman in his arms, kissing him back passionately.

After some moments, they break apart, and he's out of breath when he looks down at Joy. She smiling from ear to ear, and he has to clear his throat before he can speak again. He looks around and sees Gibbs looking at him with folded arms, shaking his head at them, and Ducky is openly laughing. Tony and Ziva are laughing as well, and Tony couldn't let the moment pass without poking fun at him.

"Way to go, probie."

"Ah…" his voice is several octaves lower, and he tries again, "not that I'm complaining, but why?"

Joy just smirks, and looks up at Hope, who is doing a happy dance looking at the pictures on her camera. She gives a sign of ok, and starts going back to the elevators.

"Wait a minute," he looks at Joy, who is now giggling like crazy, "you planned that, you just kissed me so Hope could take a picture."

She nods, "Hope always said that the view of the entrance from the second floor is great, and she always wanted to take a movie-like picture with the seal of the FBI in the background."

She points to the floor, and he sees that they are standing over the huge FBI seal made of marble that graces the entrance of the building.

Hope comes running towards them, talking excitedly, "that was perfect, simply perfect, the colors, the lightning, the shadows," she waves her camera, "I think it's my best work."

"Let me see it," asks Joy, and the two sisters ahhhh at the pictures. Tony and Ziva look at it over their shoulders, and smile at the small viewer of the Canon.

"That's so sexy and romantic, and ohhh," says Hope.

"You look hot, McGee," says Ziva. He blushes deeply.

"It's a good picture," says Joy, "you have to send it to me."

"You have to send it to mom," says Faith.

"No, mom would go insane if she saw a pic like that," says Joy.

"Why not? Hope sent her the audio of the two of you." Joy and McGee turn like statues, staring at Faith, while Hope is making horrified faces at Faith, trying to stop her of revealing her secret.

"What audio?" asks Joy calmly, her fury slowly simmering as she turns to Hope, who by now has her panic face on.

"She recorded you two, you know, _busy_," Faith wiggles her eyebrows, "and then played it to Mom and Dad the first time she went home after she met McGee. It was better than porn."

McGee is blushing brightly, and he closes his eyes when he remembers meeting Maggie Buchanan and Joseph Buchanan, and what could have gone through their heads, oh sh….!

"You little rat," Joy approaches Hope menacingly, "you bugged my APARTMENT!"

"NO, no, I didn't," she lifts her hand, as if to protect herself from her sister's fury, "not initially anyway, I kind of ran into you guys, and then I thought, that's great and then I simply recorded and the rest is history, I…"

"you… you… ARGH!" Hope gives her camera to Tony and runs out of the building, Joy hot on her heels.

"I'LL KILL YOU HOPE!"

McGee has his eyes closed, feeling totally mortified. Faith approaches him, and consoles him.

"Come on, that wasn't that bad."

"I'll never be able to look your father in the eyes again."

"Relax, the audio just spurred on their curiosity about you," she smiles, "but if I were you, I would do a very careful canvass search both in your place and Joy's before starting anything."

Gibbs smirks and shakes his head as he sees his own agent running after her own sister, shrieking like a banshee with murder in her eyes.

"She really bugged Joy's place?"

Faith takes Gibbs's arm on the left and a very mortified McGee's arm on the right, and guides them out of the building.

"Or maybe McGee's, I don't know, but that's really part of her training." Gibbs' eyebrows rise almost to his hairline, and Faith explains herself, "Hope's specialty is designing wiretapping techniques and equipment for the Bureau, she is a professional snoop. So sometimes she tests her latest inventions on us."

They get out of the building into the cold wind, and they see Joy standing by the feet of the stairs, shaking Hope, who is giggling like crazy, by her shoulders.

"Should we offer help?"

"Nah, they needed to vent some steam." She looks at the NCIS agents, "I hope you are hungry, dad prepared enough food to feed a whole Roman legion."

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Reviews are food for the soul.


	28. The Gathering

_**The Gathering  
Present day**_

"_People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.__"_

**_Jim Morrison _**

It was a beautiful cold morning. Several cars silently drove down the road and parked close to the small Catholic church, and their occupants silently left their cars and entered the church. The sky was perfectly blue, and the graveyard was covered by the snow that fell the previous night.

The piano music filled the air, while the people took their seats and attended the gathering. The priest talked quietly with Reverend Buchanan, they shake hands and Joseph takes the pulpit and starts the small memorial service.

Reverend Buchanan thanks the priest, who gracefully conceded the word to the reverend. Joseph looks at the faces of all gathered that cold morning. He sees the faces of his beloved family, his daughter surrounded by her new family in NCIS giving silent support, and the man who came into her life and is holding her hand in his, silently giving her strength to finish the task ahead.

At the other side of the small church, there are some FBI agents, family and relatives of the deceased ones, as well as some members of the BAU in DC. The others were away on a case, and couldn't come.

He lowers his head and prays for wisdom and grace, and begins:

"We are here today to celebrate the works and life of an incredible group of individuals. Alone, each had their own strengths and abilities, but put together, they represented the very best of mankind, struggling each day against unimaginable evils, fighting demons that not even the worst of our imagination couldn't bring to reality."

"Stephen King once wrote that monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

"Everybody in life one day or another has to face tragedy. Everybody suffers loss. Everybody one day will receive a call, a letter, or will see something on the television that will change your outlook on life. How you see and perceive things."

"Our lives sometimes are shaken by earthquakes, and we look around and see only rubble where our dreams, our lives, our homes used to be."

"We might think, the worst is over now, and we can breathe again. The dust is settling down. But then you realize that there's so much to learn, and there's no one left standing to fight."

"Every time humanity has gone through one of these tragedies - an earthquake, a tsunami or a hurricane - there was loss, and pain, and death. But there was also hope. Yes, hope, because as soon as news of this tragedy comes across the waves of radio or TV, somewhere out there rescue crews prepare themselves and immediately get their gear and go to the site to act as angels of mercy, and go wherever this tragedy happened and they fight, they look for survivors."

"They never go to a pile of rubble and think, oh, what a huge pile of corpses we will find, they think, oh, let's see how many survivors we will find. They might find corpses, but their main aim is to find survivors."

"There is still hope."

"In the middle of rubble, of the earthquakes that life throws in our path, sometimes we still find hope. Hope to keep fighting, looking for answers and saving lives, because that's what you are meant to do, what you're supposed to do. That's not only a job for most of you, but a calling, as you pay the price, you lose time with your family, lose loved ones, your children might even grow up to be strangers to you, but you still keep going because someone has to do it."

"Someone has to make a stand, and fill the breach in the wall."

"These amazing people of the Los Angeles Behavioral Analysis Unit filled the breach in the wall. They dedicated their entire lives to ensure that the monsters that plague the nightmares of our children do not spill out of the imaginary world to reality."

"In the end, they sacrificed their lives on the altar of intolerance and insanity, driven by the fears of a young man who was swallowed by the very monsters he was trying to hunt."

"Each one was special, in their own way, and they will be sorely missed by those who had, if just for a moment, their lives touched by these amazing individuals. They cared deeply for all victims they worked with, they cried at every life lost, and rejoiced at each and every criminal they were able to put behind bars."

"After the earthquake, first there is despair and death, then there is rescue, and there is reconstruction. The rubble must be moved, the terrain cleaned, so life can start all over again."

"God hasn't created us to live between rubble, breathing down the ash and dust of the former lives that we had. We have to move on, and build again."

"So this morning, we honor the fallen, and rejoice in their deeds. They were mighty deeds, and they will forever be remembered by them."

"I invite all present here today, to stay a minute in silence, and watch a small presentation on our fallen."

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	29. Broken

**_Broken_**

**"_Maybe if I share the path I walk then a little more of your pain will vanish. I want you to heal, whoever you are. I don't care what pain you've brought the world, I just want yours to subside. No matter what, your path is yours. Don't follow misery or worry. Devote every moment of your life to improving your dreams. Love your world. Cherish the good you do. Let go of hatred. Dream of love." Anonymous_**

He steps down of the pulpit, and the lights become dim. Soft music starts to be heard, and on a screen over the pulpit they make a small presentation of pictures of the team, showing stills of the team throughout the years.

_The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight  
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time_

Anita hugging Lorraine, both in black dresses, and Eric leering at them.

_I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts  
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out_

Leo with a Viking hat making faces behind Dimitri.

_I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
With a broken heart that's still beating_

A very young Joy in full FBI gear standing with Norman pointing to something out of the picture, Norman looking at a map in his hand, confused.

_In the pain, there is healing  
In your name I find meaning_

Dimitri leaning over a conference table, several pictures over it, and the team around the table studying what was on it.

_So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely holdin' on to you_

The three women dressed as hookers, during an undercover assignment, and Leo on his knees looking at them adoringly.

_The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head  
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead_

Joy hugging Eric and making horns with her fingers over his head, and both laughing at the camera.

_I still see your reflection inside of my eyes  
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life_

Leo sleeping with his headphones on, and Eric putting blush on his face.

Norman, Eric and Dimitri in full assault FBI gear during a hostage negotiation, with their guns in hands.

_I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
with a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain (in the pain), there is healing  
In your name (in your name) I find meaning_

Leo sleeping with his head in Joy's lap during an all-nighter, and Joy reading an autopsy report at the same time that she plays with his hair.

_So I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin')  
I'm barely holdin' on to you_

Eric with his feet on top of his desk, staring at the ceiling.

_So I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin')  
I'm barely holdin' on to you_

All the team standing in tuxedos and party dresses, during one of the Christmas functions of the Bureau. In it we could see Joy in a very pretty red velour dress, and she had one of her arms around Eric and the other around Norman, and there were huge smiles on their faces. Anita is laughing, her head thrown back, and Dimitri is looking indulgently at her. Lorraine is standing looking sideways at Leo, who is hugging her and trying not to be very obvious that he's staring at her breasts in the dress.

A small clip is played, and it is of Leo's last birthday, just two months before their deaths, before Jarod's case.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Happy birthday to you," the team start singing and Leo stands and gets his headphones out of his ears, and his grin is huge, as Joy brings a huge chocolate cake to his desk, and the other agents surround him and keep on singing very out of tune.

He rubs his head with his hand and blushes deeply.

"Guys thanks, but you really shouldn't, that's really great," Eric lights the candles,

"now Leo, you have to make a wish, you can ask to finally lose your virginity,"

Leo hits Eric on his stomach, "hahaha, very funny,"

"Shut up Eric," says Anita,

"Come on, little one, blow the candles," says Lorraine.

He closes his eyes, leans over and blows the candles, and everybody cheers.

"What did you wish for?" asks Dimitri from where he is standing.

"He can't tell, or it won't come true," says Joy.

Leo lifts his hand and asks for silence,

"No guys, it is important," they get silent for a moment, waiting for his speech,

"I wished …"

"For a bigger penis," says Eric, and everyone throws paper balls at him.

"Shut up, Eric," says Anita.

"You're so gross!" says Lorraine.

Leo signs that he wants to speak, "guys," they get silent again, and he puts his hand on his chest, over his heart.

"I just want to say that I love you guys, each one of you, you are my family, my only family and I enjoy every single day I work with you, because finally my work is important, because you make it important, and we save lives and," he looks around, and he's getting choked up and there are tears in the eyes of the women in the team, the guys are pretending they are not emotionally touched, and rub their eyes.

"I love you guys, and I want to always work with you, until the day that I die,"

They all smile, Lorraine and Joy look at each other and attack Leo, "we love you too, Leo," and they each hug one of his sides and kiss him on the face, and he blushes deeply.

Joy is more pragmatic, "you gave us your speech, now we eat cake," she gets a knife and starts cutting the cake, "get me the forks and the plates."

They start eating the cake.

_I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'), I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),  
I'm barely holdin' on to you_

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Reviews are food for soul.


	30. Eulogy

**_Eulogy_**

The video ends, and the lights come back on. There are very few dry eyes in the church. Joy's head is lowered, and she feels Timothy squeezing her hand, giving her the clue that it is her time to speak.

She squeezes his hand back, stands up and walks down the aisle to the pulpit. The whole church stays silent, watching the only survivor of the team take the stand.

She takes the stand, and looks at the paper she wrote, but the lines are blurred by her tears.

She smiles, and starts, "I've imagined several times what I would say if I was given the chance to speak about them again. I even wrote a eulogy, a very nice one, but I realize that words wouldn't be enough, they couldn't represent what they meant to me, neither explain how much their loss affected me."

She is openly crying now, but her voice is still firm, and she wipes her face in one of her hands.

"Father is right, there's so much left to learn, and so much left to be done, but I got to a crossroad in life that I felt like there were was no one left to fight. Nothing left to fight for."

She turns to her father, "it is not easy to clean rubble after an earthquake." She points to Matthew, sitting by Sarah, "My brother Matthew can attest to that, as he has been working in the reconstruction of earthquake destroyed areas for years."

She wipes her face again, "Most of the structures that were destroyed, they only left behind broken columns, iron bars and several tons of bricks and stones. It is a struggle to clean it up, and the progress is very slow. But you can do it. A step at a time."

She lowers her face, and takes a deep breath, "words might not be enough to express their loss, but maybe a song can," she stands straighter, "I would like to invite my family to join me here, Johnny, Stephy, Dad, Mark, please," they silently stand up and prepare the instruments, Johnny on the guitar, Stephy on the piano, Mark on the drums and Joseph on his old cello.

She speaks in a low voice to them and Steph starts the intro of a song and Joy starts singing the lyrics.

_It must've been in a place so dark you couldn't feel the light  
Reachin' for you through that stormy cloud  
Now here we are gathered in our little hometown  
This can't be the way you meant to draw a crowd___

Oh, why? That's what I keep askin'  
Was there anything I could have said or done?  
Oh, I had no clue you were masking  
A troubled soul, God only knows what went wrong  
And why you'd leave the stage in the middle of a song

Joy lowers her face, and tears are freely running down her face. She remembers late nights working, poker games, movie nights… she keeps on singing.

_Now in my mind I keep you frozen as a seventeen year old  
Roundin' third to score the winning run_

Friday nights were poker nights at Dimitri's place. Eric and Leo always made a lot of noise whenever they won. Anita and Lorraine would just laugh.

_You always played with passion no matter what the game  
When you took the stage, you shined just like the sun_

Whenever it was Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, they would have a cookout at Anita's place.

_Oh, why? That's what I keep askin'  
And was there anything I could have said or done?  
Oh, I had no clue you were masking  
A troubled soul, oh, God only knows what went wrong  
And why you'd leave the stage in the middle of a song_

She remembers their captivity, and how Eric screamed and hurled himself against the chains that held him back whenever Jarod hurt either her or one of the other victims.

How he cried whenever he was forced to hurt her, or one of the other victims, or receive the punishment by Jarod's hands.

_Now the oak trees are swayin' in the early autumn breeze  
The golden sun is shining on my face  
The tangled thoughts I hear a mockingbird sing  
This old world really ain't that bad a place_

She remembers clearly one night, when only she and Eric were working late at night on their floor, and they started to talk about the future.

"I don't worry about the future," says Eric.

"You don't?" Joy's eyebrows are up on her forehead, questioningly.

Eric smiles, "whether I worry or not, the future will come and bulldoze us all over, so I try to live one day at a time, no big plans, just enjoying it as much as possible everyday,"

Joy smiles and nods.

He asks, "What about you? Are you one of those boring people who plan every single thing of their lives, from now up to the next ten years?"

He brings his chair closer to her, and waits for her answer, "no surprises, no big expectations," plays with one of her curls, "no shortcuts in your path?"

She smiles and leans back on her chair, and studies him attentively, "I prefer to believe that there is a purpose, a reason why we are born and we are here in this world."

He studies her the same way she studies him, and she notices he for once is serious, "that there is a meaning behind every act and event in our existences."

He leans over, "but that's boring," he gets ready to kiss her, "there are no surprises then."

He leans over more, but she turns her face, avoiding his lips, and he leans back, frowning.

"No," she whispers.

"Why not?" he is confused.

She sits straighter, and he is still frowning at her.

She smiles again and looks at him attentively, "Eric, it would never work."

He shrugs, "we could try, why not?"

Joy laughs a little and shakes her head, and he gets more confused.

"What's so funny?"

She looks again at him, "I'm not the trying type, I'm the once for all type."

He frowns at that, "what's wrong with trying? There are no certainties in this world, we put our lives on the line every single day, why should we not try to be happy for a little while?"

She shakes her head, "I can't afford to offer pieces of my heart and soul to someone just to have a brief moment of lust," she looks at him, "and you know that we would never work out."

He looks down at his hands, still frowning, and she continues, "you are a great person, but I'm not the right match for you," she shakes her head, "and I'm looking for something different, something…"

He looks at her and smirks, "you are looking for Mr. Right?"

He snorts, "I've never pegged you as a hopeless romantic, Buchanan."

She smiles at him, "I'm not looking for Mr. Right, I'm waiting…" she pauses, really thinking, and after some seconds and looks back at him, "I'm looking for someone who reeks of purity, in his acts, in his words, in his very soul, so his purity may act as a counterbalance to the darkness I carry within me."

Eric sees her eyes filling with tears, and hates being a realist.

"What if he doesn't exist? What if you never find him?"

Joy smiles sadly, "then I'll live alone, but I won't impose my burden on anyone else."

_Oh, why? There's no comprehending  
And who am I to try to judge or explain?  
Oh, but I do have one burning question_

She remembers when she was told that they were all dead, and that Eric was the one who killed them.

_Who told you life wasn't worth the fight?_

"Don't you dare give up on me, Joy Buchanan," Eric says as they find themselves in Jarod's basement in that very first day.

_They were wrong, they lied, and now you're gone, and we cried_

"Peanut, they are dead. They are all dead," says Johnny, sadly.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" Joy shouts and cries desperately.

_'Cause it's not like you to walk away in the middle of a song  
Your beautiful song, your absolutely beautiful song_

They stay in silence for a moment after the last notes, and her father slowly starts to play a solo on the cello, a haunting melody that fills the church.

She looks at him for a moment, watching him play with his soul and slowly starts to descend the steps and walks towards her seat, Timothy stands up and opens his arms, and she hugs him and together they wait for the song to end.

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Reviews are food for soul.


	31. Goodbye

**_Goodbye_**

"_One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: _**_that word is love.__"- __Sophocles _**

Later, after the service, the people present went to leave their respects to the four tombstones in the cemetery outside. The NCIS team each left a rose on the tombs of the fallen agents, and moved to a respectful distance, waiting for Joy with her family. Her father squeezed her hand and she approached the tombstones slowly. She looked at all the roses left, and slides a small gloved hand over Leo's tombstone.

"I miss you guys."

She closes her yes, and remembers their smiles, their faces. Leo's irreverence, Anita's maternal side, Lorraine's laughter, Norman's serious talks, Dimitri's advice given whenever they were needed and Eric, sweet and troubled Eric.

She hears footsteps and a pair of strong arms enfolds her, bringing her towards a warm chest. She closes her eyes and leans back towards it.

"Time to say goodbye, Joy," says Timothy.

She nods, leaves her roses, and puts her small gloved hand on the fold of his arm, and they start walking towards the other members of Team Gibbs. The wind blew on Joy's face, making one of her curls fall on her face, and she moves one of her gloved hands to put it back into place, and she sees something on the corner of her eye that makes her stop their progress. She looks back to the right, towards the church, further down the path, fixedly.

Timothy stops and looks down at her, "Joy?"

She doesn't answer, but keeps staring at something down the path to the right. He looks in the same direction, and doesn't see anything. She smiles a soft smile, and keeps looking on for some moments more, just adding to his confusion.

Later on, she shakes her head, and starts walking again. He keeps sending confused glances at her, she just smiles and doesn't say anything.

"What?"

"What what?"

"What did you see?"

She smiles, "They are fine," she says with conviction.

"They are," says McGee, with doubt in his voice.

"Yep."

"Are you sure?"

She looks at him, and he sees genuine happiness on her eyes, "they are fine."

They join Tony, Ziva and Gibbs, along with Ducky, Abby and Palmer and move out of the cemetery, towards their cars so they may go to the cookout that Maggie organized in the townhouse.

Tony is curious about something though, "did you really shave Leo's chest out of spite?"

Joy smirks, "I didn't shave his chest, I poured Brazilian hot wax and ripped all the hairs of his chest out."

He cringes, "that must have hurt."

She laughs, "You have no idea."

She looks slyly at him, "you got off easy; I had run out of hot wax and did not have time recently to buy more when I tied you to your chair."

He looks at her, scared, as she enters into McGee's car, and McGee can barely contain his mirth.

"Ouch."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"I'll be damned," says Eric, looking at the agents leaving the cemetery, "she found her Mr. Right."

"You couldn't expect her to be moping for us the rest of her life, could you?" asks Lorraine, watching her former teammate leave.

"Do you think she will forget us?" Leo is trying to make a snowball with his ghostly hands, but he can't grab the white snow.

Norman is smiling, with his arm over Anita's shoulder, "no, never, but she will move on."

Dimitri is watching the snowflakes falling on top of their heads, and he is watching them slowly flow through his almost transparent hands, "there is a time for everything," he says philosophically, "and our time is long gone."

"Ahhh" his former agents moan, "can't we stay a little bit more?" asks Leo, still trying to play with the snow.

"It is time," he indicates their winged guardians behind them. They nod and follow their guardians.

Leo is not finished, "can't we even tell her that…"

"No," Dimitri is categorical.

They walk away towards the light and silently disappear.

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Reviews are food for soul.

a/n: As always, a very emotional story. Thanks for all the faithful reviewers and for the wonderful Alix who patiently helped me in this story. You rock, ma'am.


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